Calenzana fire, February 2019 Calenzana, Moncale
The fire started on 24 February 2019 in Calenzana, France, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,158 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 5th largest in Haute-Corse since 2016 (of 27 with a page). The largest in France in 2019, of 26.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 1,158ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 3days
- 24 Feb 2019 – 26 Feb 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- communes
- Started on
- 24 Feb
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 49
- in a single hotspot: 93 MW
- Danger at start
- 13
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 136MW
- detected power per day, on average
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.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
1,076 ha reached on 24 Feb5.9 %
-
Moncale 348 inhabitants · 0.6 km from the centre83 ha reached on 24 Feb11 %
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 land52 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland30 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub14 %
- Coniferous forest4.8 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 14 %
- ZEPA Forêts Territoriales de Corse FR9410113
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 1,110 ha was recorded in Calenzana on 23 February 2019 (the satellite measured 1,158 ha). The record has no coordinates, so it was matched by municipality and date.
- Calenzana 23 February 2019 · 20:03 1,110 ha · cause: arson
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 Feb | 10.2 °C | 20 % | 86 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 25 Feb | 13.0 °C | 37 % | 65 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 26 Feb | 14.4 °C | 44 % | 70 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 27 Feb after | 14.7 °C | 16 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 28 Feb after | 17.2 °C | 27 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 1 Mar after | 15.2 °C | 31 % | 63 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 2 Mar after | 14.3 °C | 38 % | 53 km/h | 0.1 mm | Low 11 |
| 3 Mar after | 13.7 °C | 48 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 4 Mar after | 18.3 °C | 27 % | 85 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 5 Mar after | 13.5 °C | 34 % | 89 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 6 Mar after | 13.3 °C | 46 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 7 Mar after | 16.6 °C | 44 % | 79 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 8 Mar after | 13.4 °C | 49 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
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 24 February 2019 the air beside the fire reached 24 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 · 49Every 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 Calenzana fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 24 February 2019 and 26 February 2019: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,158 hectares (11.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Calenzana (1,076 ha, 5.9 %); Moncale (83 ha, 11 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Calenzana and reached its centre: the point marking it was inside the burnt area or less than 500 metres from it. That does not mean houses burned.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 14.4 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 86 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 13, class Moderate.
- 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. 49 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with BDIFF: 1,110 official ha against 1,158 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.