Boisbreteau fire, August 2022 Boisbreteau, Bors (Canton de Charente-Sud)
The fire started on 8 August 2022 in Boisbreteau, France, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 110 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
Number 44 in France in 2022, of 49.
Compare with…
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
- 110ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 8 Aug 2022 – 9 Aug 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- communes
- Started on
- 8 Aug
- 2022
- Danger at start
- 34
- High · FWI index
- Natura 2000
- 2%
- of the perimeter is protected land
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.3 mm on 14 Aug.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
82 ha5.3 %
-
Bors (Canton de Charente-Sud) 119 inhabitants · 0.7 km from the centre28 ha2.3 %
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
- Coniferous forest78 %
- Agricultural areas14 %
- Broadleaved forest7.5 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 2 %
- LIC Vallées du Lary et du Palais FR5402010
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 112 ha was recorded in Boisbreteau on 8 August 2022 (the satellite measured 110 ha). The record has no coordinates, so it was matched by municipality and date.
- Boisbreteau 8 August 2022 · 22:04 112 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 Aug | 32.4 °C | 25 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 9 Aug | 34.0 °C | 22 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 10 Aug after | 36.0 °C | 17 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 11 Aug after | 37.6 °C | 23 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 12 Aug after | 37.8 °C | 24 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 13 Aug after | 32.6 °C | 42 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 14 Aug after | 25.1 °C | 49 % | 43 km/h | 3.3 mm | Low 8 |
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 12 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 13 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)
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Boisbreteau fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 8 August 2022 and 9 August 2022: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 110 hectares (1.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Boisbreteau (82 ha, 5.3 %); Bors (Canton de Charente-Sud) (28 ha, 2.3 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 0.7 km of the centre of Bors (Canton de Charente-Sud), 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 34.0 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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 · 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.
- Compared with BDIFF: 112 official ha against 110 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.