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Cerbère fire, April 2023 Cerbère, Banyuls-sur-Mer

Out · last measured on 16 Apr 2023

The fire started on 16 April 2023 in Cerbère, France, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 770 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

The largest in France in 2023, of 9.

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
770ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
16 Apr 2023 – 16 Apr 2023
Municipalities hit
2
communes
Started on
16 Apr
2023
Danger at start
21
Moderate · FWI index
Natura 2000
96%
of the perimeter is protected land

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

17°high
88km/h · peak gust
35%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.1 mm on 23 Apr.

This area had burned before

6% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 48 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Cerbère 1,209 inhabitants · 0.3 km from the town where it started
    543 ha
    65 %
  2. Banyuls-sur-Mer 4,496 inhabitants · 2.2 km from the town
    222 ha
    5.2 %

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 land43 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub25 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland17 %
  • Agricultural areas13 %
  • Artificial surfaces1.7 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 96 %

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 724 ha was recorded in Banyuls-sur-Mer on 16 April 2023 (the satellite measured 770 ha). The record has no coordinates, so it was matched by municipality and date.

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)
16 Apr 16.8 °C 35 % 88 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
17 Apr after 19.4 °C 28 % 78 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
18 Apr after 17.1 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 13
19 Apr after 19.2 °C 39 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
20 Apr after 20.6 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
21 Apr after 22.5 °C 46 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
22 Apr after 22.2 °C 42 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
23 Apr after 20.5 °C 46 % 37 km/h 6.1 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 9 Apr 2023
After · 23 Apr 2023

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 · Copernicus

On 19 April 2023 the air beside the fire reached 17 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak17 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1024 µg/m³
Optical depth0.26
141516171819
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in France ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Cerbère fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 16 April 2023 and 16 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 770 hectares (7.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cerbère (543 ha, 65 %); Banyuls-sur-Mer (222 ha, 5.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.3 km of Cerbère. 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 16.8 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 88 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 21, 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

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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 112 · 18.

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.