Burned area
satellite only322ha
Perimeter published by EFFIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- perimeter revised on 8 May 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
IE · Ireland ·
Belmullet LEA-3 fire, April 2023 Belmullet LEA-3
Out · last detection 7 Apr 2023, 13:03 UTC
The fire started on 7 April 2023 in Belmullet LEA-3, Ireland, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 322 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
This entry is probably a heather, gorse or hill-grazing burn, not a wildfire. In the UK and Ireland moors and hillsides are burnt every winter and spring to renew grazing or heather. This is our assumption, based on the time of year, ground with almost no woodland and the lack of news about this fire; it is not confirmed. That is why it is left out of the wildfire rankings.
The power measured by the satellite is low (7.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only1day
7 Apr 2023 to 7 Apr 2023: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 7 Apr 2023, 13:03 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only7 Apr 2023
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 7 Apr 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only1
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 7 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 7 Apr 2023 – 7 Apr 2023
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only7MW
Total radiative power on 7 April 2023; hotspots that day: 1.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 7 Apr 2023
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model0.9FWI · very low
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 0.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 7 Apr 2023, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model13.1°C · 54% RH
High of 13.1 °C and minimum humidity of 54% on 7 April 2023; gusts of 53 km/h on 7 April 2023.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 7 Apr 2023 – 7 Apr 2023
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
· reconstructed perimeterEFFIS (Copernicus) revises the perimeter
What was saved on 24 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 322 ha
- Dates
- 7 Apr 2023 – 7 Apr 2023
- Name
- Belmullet LEA-3
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/belmullet-lea-3-2023-04?v=2026-10-24A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire belmullet-lea-3-2023-04.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-04-07 | 1 | 7 | 13.1 | 3 | 54 | 26.3 | 53.3 | 0 | 0.9 | muy_bajo | 1 |
| 2023-04-08 | 0 | 0 | 13.2 | 7.2 | 63 | 26.3 | 52.2 | 0.3 | 2.6 | muy_bajo | 0 |
| 2023-04-09 | 0 | 0 | 11.8 | 8.1 | 79 | 31.8 | 69.1 | 5.8 | 0.9 | muy_bajo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: EFFIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 322ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 7 Apr 2023 – 7 Apr 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local electoral areas
- Started on
- 7 Apr
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 1
- in a single hotspot: 7 MW
- Danger at start
- 1
- Very low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 7MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
7 Apr7 Apr
How it evolved, day by day
7 Apr 2023 · 7 MW · 1
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
13°high
53km/h · peak gust
54%lowest humidity
It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.8 mm on 9 Apr.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
Belmullet LEA-3 where it started320 ha reached on 7 Apr0.2 %
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 land100 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 Apr | 13.1 °C | 54 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 8 Apr after | 13.2 °C | 63 % | 52 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very low 3 |
| 9 Apr after | 11.8 °C | 79 % | 69 km/h | 5.8 mm | Very low 1 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 0.9, a minimum humidity of 54% and rain the day before. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 11.
FWI at the start
0.9
Minimum humidity
54 %
Days without rain
0
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Belmullet LEA-3 fire, April 2023
322 ha
1 day
FWI 0.9
Min. humidity 54 %
Conamara North LEA-4 fire, May 2016
614 ha
2 days
FWI 1.6
Min. humidity 58 %
69 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.3 mm on 17 May.
Conamara North LEA-4 fire, May 2016
133 ha
1 day
FWI 1.9
Min. humidity 58 %
67 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.3 mm on 17 May.
Tuam LEA-7 fire, May 2025
102 ha
1 day
FWI 4.0
Min. humidity 50 %
96 km away, in 2025
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Kinnegad LEA-5 fire, July 2026
105 ha
9 days
FWI 6.8
Min. humidity 55 %
192 km away, in 2026
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Fermanagh and Omagh fire, April 2020
192 ha
2 days
FWI 5.1
Min. humidity 58 %
200 km away, in 2020
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.0 mm on 27 Apr.
What happened to them
Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 11. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
5.8 mmfirst rain
9 Apr2 days after it ended
53km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 7 Apr, and on 9 Apr 5.8 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 31 Mar 2023
After · 14 Apr 2023
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 8 April 2023 the air beside the fire reached 9 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak9 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1024 µg/m³
Optical depth0.52
5 Apr7 Apr9 Apr
Good
Fair
Moderate
Poor
Very poor
Extremely poor
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 · 1Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV
Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Belmullet LEA-3 fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 7 April 2023 and 7 April 2023: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 322 hectares (3.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Belmullet LEA-3 (320 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 13.1 °C, humidity dropped to 54 % and gusts hit 53 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 Ireland (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: 999 · 112 · 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.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. One Suomi-NPP VIIRS detection 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.
- Probably a vegetation burn: not counted in the totals.
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 ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)). 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.