Aubais fire, July 2022 Aubais, Gallargues-le-Montueux, Aigues-Vives
The fire started on 31 July 2022 in Aubais, France, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 318 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
Number 20 in France in 2022, of 49.
We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.
- Burnt area
- 318ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 31 Jul 2022 – 1 Aug 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- communes
- Started on
- 31 Jul
- 2022
- Danger at start
- 53
- Extreme · FWI index
- Natura 2000
- 0%
- of the perimeter is protected land
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 10.0 mm on 5 Aug.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
162 ha13 %
-
Gallargues-le-Montueux 3,659 inhabitants · 0.6 km from the town154 ha14 %
-
2 ha0.2 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
What burned
- Agricultural areas74 %
- Broadleaved forest12 %
- Mixed forest7.3 %
- Coniferous forest6.4 %
- Artificial surfaces0.6 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 0 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
Official record
According to BDIFF, a fire of 286 ha was recorded in Aubais on 31 July 2022 (the satellite measured 318 ha). The record has no coordinates, so it was matched by municipality and date.
- Aubais 31 July 2022 · 14:57 286 ha · cause: arson
BDIFF (Base de Données sur les Incendies de Forêts en France). This is the agency’s consolidated statistic: it measures the area in its own way, which is why it can differ from the satellite.
The weather day by day
ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31 Jul | 38.0 °C | 16 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 1 Aug | 39.4 °C | 14 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 2 Aug after | 38.3 °C | 20 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 3 Aug after | 35.2 °C | 29 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 4 Aug after | 34.5 °C | 36 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 5 Aug after | 36.0 °C | 37 % | 38 km/h | 10.0 mm | Low 11 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 3 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 11 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Aubais fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 31 July 2022 and 1 August 2022: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 318 hectares (3.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Aubais (162 ha, 13 %); Gallargues-le-Montueux (154 ha, 14 %); Aigues-Vives (2 ha, 0.2 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.6 km of Gallargues-le-Montueux. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.4 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, class Extreme.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of France (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.
Where to verify it
A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.
Emergency number: 112 · 18
Satellite cross-check
Does something look wrong on this page?
This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.
Report an error
Where this data comes from
The perimeter and land cover come from the Copernicus European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), measured on MODIS and Sentinel-2 imagery and published under CC BY 4.0. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM5 (Open Data Commons Attribution License 1.0). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ slightly from each country’s official figure.