Bielle fire, February 2021 Bielle
The fire started on 20 February 2021 in Bielle, France, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 127 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
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.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Escot · 2026Escot · 2025Escot · 2021Arette · 2019
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
- 127ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 20 Feb 2021 – 20 Feb 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- communes
- Started on
- 20 Feb
- 2021
- Danger at start
- 4
- Very low · FWI index
- Natura 2000
- 99%
- of the perimeter is protected land
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 15.5 mm on 22 Feb.
This area had burned before
29% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 37 ha in 2018.
What happened to each town
-
Bielle where it started127 ha5.0 %
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 land78 %
- Broadleaved forest22 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 99 %
- LIC Massif du Montagnon FR7200745
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 Feb | 13.8 °C | 32 % | 72 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 21 Feb after | 11.6 °C | 35 % | 64 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 22 Feb after | 6.4 °C | 75 % | 37 km/h | 15.5 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 21 February 2021 the air beside the fire reached 51 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 37: 2.5 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)
Other fires nearby
- 701 haEscotFebruary 2026 · 4 days · 9 km away
- 629 haEscotFebruary 2025 · 3 days · 9 km away
- 566 haEscotFebruary 2021 · 3 days · 10 km away
- 690 haArette15 February 2019 · 8 days · 23 km away
- 544 haSainte-EngrâceFebruary 2023 · 4 days · 30 km away
- 860 haSainte-Engrâce14 February 2019 · 10 days · 32 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Bielle fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 20 February 2021 and 20 February 2021: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 127 hectares (1.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Bielle (127 ha, 5.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 13.8 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 72 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 4, 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 · 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.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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.
- 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 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.