Beaucens fire, December 2016 Villelongue, Beaucens
The fire started on 8 December 2016 in Beaucens, France, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 151 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
This record is most likely a pastoral burn (écobuage) in the Pyrenees, not a forest fire. In winter, grassland and scrub are burnt to renew the pasture, and this fire does not appear in France's official forest fire database (BDIFF). That is why it is left out of the fire rankings.
The power measured by the satellite is low (11.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 151ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 8 Dec 2016 – 9 Dec 2016
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- communes
- Started on
- 8 Dec
- 2016
- Heat detections
- 17
- in a single hotspot: 11 MW
- Danger at start
- 1
- Very low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 59MW
- 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 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
Villelongue 347 inhabitants · 1.2 km from the town103 ha reached on 9 Dec5.1 %
-
49 ha reached on 8 Dec1.3 %
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 land77 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland22 %
- Broadleaved forest0.6 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 Dec | 10.3 °C | 57 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 9 Dec | 11.1 °C | 44 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 10 Dec after | 10.2 °C | 49 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 11 Dec after | 6.4 °C | 67 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 12 Dec after | 6.9 °C | 69 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 13 Dec after | 8.3 °C | 49 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 14 Dec after | 8.7 °C | 42 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 2 |
| 15 Dec after | 5.4 °C | 64 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 16 Dec after | 6.3 °C | 74 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 17 Dec after | 6.5 °C | 71 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 18 Dec after | 5.4 °C | 41 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 19 Dec after | 2.0 °C | 46 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
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.
Detections table · 17Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 256 haOmexFebruary 2026 · 1 day · 15 km away
- 387 haLouvie-SoubironFebruary 2026 · 1 day · 29 km away
- 274 haLouvie-SoubironFebruary 2021 · 2 days · 29 km away
- 450 haAste-BéonJanuary 2019 · 4 days · 30 km away
- 415 haAste-BéonFebruary 2026 · 1 day · 30 km away
- 350 haLarunsFebruary 2021 · 4 days · 33 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Beaucens fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 8 December 2016 and 9 December 2016: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 151 hectares (1.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Villelongue (103 ha, 5.1 %); Beaucens (49 ha, 1.3 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.2 km of Villelongue. 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 11.1 °C, humidity dropped to 44 % and gusts hit 26 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 1, class Very 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
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.
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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.