Aussurucq fire, February 2026 Alçay-Alçabéhéty-Sunharette, Mendive, Aussurucq
The fire started on 24 February 2026 in Aussurucq, France, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,316 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.
It is the largest fire in Pyrénées-Atlantiques since 2016 (of 69 with a page). Number 8 in France in 2026, of 114.
The power measured by the satellite is low (26.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 1,316ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- ≈ 7days
- 24 Feb 2026 – 2 Mar 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 4
- communes
- Started on
- 24 Feb
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 48
- in a single hotspot: 26 MW
- Danger at start
- 6
- Low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 56MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.8 mm on 28 Feb.
This area had burned before
81% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 31 ha in 2016, 850 ha in 2019, 188 ha in 2020, 378 ha in 2021, 370 ha in 2022, 467 ha in 2023, 222 ha in 2024, 576 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,060 ha that had burned before.
- 504 ha Mendive fire, February 2019 2,916 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 401 ha Mendive fire, February 2025 867 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 345 ha Alçay-Alçabéhéty-Sunharette fire, February 2019 571 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 250 ha Alçay-Alçabéhéty-Sunharette fire, February 2023 270 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 205 ha Alçay-Alçabéhéty-Sunharette fire, February 2021 226 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 143 ha Béhorléguy fire, February 2023 504 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 111 ha Alçay-Alçabéhéty-Sunharette fire, February 2020 121 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 111 ha Alçay-Alçabéhéty-Sunharette fire, February 2022 111 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Alçay-Alçabéhéty-Sunharette 206 inhabitants · 4.7 km from the centre552 ha reached on 25 Feb16 %
-
Mendive 172 inhabitants · 5.0 km from the centre540 ha reached on 25 Feb13 %
-
216 ha reached on 25 Feb4.6 %
-
Béhorléguy 66 inhabitants · 3.7 km from the centre9 ha reached on 24 Feb0.4 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
What burned
- Other natural land90 %
- Broadleaved forest10 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- ZEPA Haute Soule : forêt d'Iraty, Orgambidexka et Pic des Escaliers FR7212005
- ZEPA Haute Soule : forêt des Arbailles FR7212004
- LIC La Nive FR7200786
- LIC Le Saison (cours d'eau) FR7200790
- LIC Massif des Arbailles FR7200752
- LIC Montagnes du Pic des Escaliers FR7200751
Natura 2000 sites (European Environment Agency, 2024 release) crossed by the perimeter.
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 0.12 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Feb | 19.6 °C | 22 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 26 Feb | 19.3 °C | 25 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 27 Feb | 18.3 °C | 26 % | 54 km/h | 0.9 mm | Low 6 |
| 28 Feb | 6.2 °C | 91 % | 28 km/h | 5.8 mm | Very low 0 |
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 27 February 2026 the air beside the fire reached 43 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 times the WHO daily 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)
Detections table · 48Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 2,916 haMendiveFebruary 2019 · 9 days · 7 km away
- 1,172 haLarrau24 February 2026 · 7 days · 7 km away
- 1,965 haLecumberry14 February 2019 · 9 days · 9 km away
- 1,379 haEstérençubyFebruary 2021 · 7 days · 9 km away
- 1,120 haHostaFebruary 2019 · 14 days · 9 km away
- 1,074 haAhaxe-Alciette-BascassanFebruary 2019 · 8 days · 13 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Aussurucq fire last?
- The official perimeter only gives the start date (25 February 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 2 March 2026 (7 days from 24 February 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,316 hectares (13.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 4 municipalities: Alçay-Alçabéhéty-Sunharette (552 ha, 16 %); Mendive (540 ha, 13 %); Aussurucq (216 ha, 4.6 %); Béhorléguy (9 ha, 0.4 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 3.7 km of the centre of Béhorléguy, the closest of the areas it touched. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 19.6 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 6, class Low.
- 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 48 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.