Balazuc fire, July 2019 Balazuc, Lanas
The fire started on 13 July 2019 in Balazuc, France, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 195 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
Number 11 in France in 2019, of 25.
- Burnt area
- 195ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 13 Jul 2019 – 13 Jul 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- communes
- Started on
- 13 Jul
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 10
- in a single hotspot: 111 MW
- Danger at start
- 37
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 256MW
- sum of detected power
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: 2.1 mm on 21 Jul.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
169 ha reached on 13 Jul8.9 %
-
Lanas 429 inhabitants · 2.7 km from the town25 ha reached on 13 Jul2.5 %
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
- Other natural land97 %
- Broadleaved forest2.6 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 96 %
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.
Official record
According to BDIFF, a fire of 193 ha was recorded in Lanas on 13 July 2019 (the satellite measured 195 ha). The record has no coordinates, so it was matched by municipality and date.
- Lanas 13 July 2019 · 13:07 193 ha
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 Jul | 30.2 °C | 29 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 14 Jul after | 30.0 °C | 28 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 15 Jul after | 27.0 °C | 35 % | 71 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 16 Jul after | 30.7 °C | 30 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 17 Jul after | 32.5 °C | 24 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 18 Jul after | 32.5 °C | 25 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 19 Jul after | 32.0 °C | 32 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 20 Jul after | 30.4 °C | 45 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 21 Jul after | 34.3 °C | 39 % | 23 km/h | 2.1 mm | Moderate 12 |
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 16 July 2019 the air beside the fire reached 8 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)
Detections table · 10Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Balazuc fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 13 July 2019 and 13 July 2019: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 195 hectares (2.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Balazuc (169 ha, 8.9 %); Lanas (25 ha, 2.5 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.2 km of Balazuc. 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 30.2 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, class High.
- 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.