How long did the Escot fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 24 February 2020 and 27 February 2020: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 264 hectares (2.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 4 municipalities: Escot (211 ha, 9.3 %); Oloron-Sainte-Marie (45 ha, 0.7 %); Bilhères (6 ha, 0.3 %); Lurbe-Saint-Christau (2 ha, 0.2 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.6 km of Lurbe-Saint-Christau. 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 17.5 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 70 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 5, 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.

FR · France · 2020-02-24 → 2020-02-27

Escot fire, February 2020 Escot, Oloron-Sainte-Marie, Bilhères

Out · last detection 25 Feb 2020, 01:52 UTC

The fire started on 24 February 2020 in Escot, France, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 264 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.

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.

The power measured by the satellite is low (14.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 264ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 4days; 24 Feb 2020 – 27 Feb 2020
Municipalities hit: 4; communes
Started on: 24 Feb; 2020
Heat detections: 7; in a single hotspot: 14 MW
Danger at start: 5; Very low · FWI index
Energy released: 63MW; sum of detected power

Play back 25 Feb 2020

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Feb27 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

2425

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

18°high

70km/h · peak gust

30%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.3 mm on 28 Feb.

This area had burned before

58% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 153 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

Escot 118 inhabitants · 2.9 km from the town where it started

211 ha reached on 24 Feb

9.3 %
Oloron-Sainte-Marie 10,684 inhabitants · 9.5 km from the town

45 ha reached on 24 Feb

0.7 %
Bilhères 154 inhabitants · 7.6 km from the town

6 ha

0.3 %
Lurbe-Saint-Christau 207 inhabitants · 2.6 km from the town

2 ha

0.2 %

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 land59 %
Broadleaved forest37 %
Mixed forest2.2 %
Agricultural areas1.9 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 0 %

LIC Le Gave d'Aspe et le Lourdios (cours d'eau) FR7200792

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)
24 Feb	17.5 °C	30 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 5
25 Feb	10.4 °C	41 %	54 km/h	5.3 mm	Very low 0
26 Feb	6.5 °C	81 %	70 km/h	12.4 mm	Very low 0
27 Feb	10.6 °C	57 %	60 km/h	11.8 mm	Very low 0
28 Feb after	14.8 °C	54 %	45 km/h	4.3 mm	Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 17 Feb 2020

After · 5 Mar 2020

Before After

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 28 February 2020 the air beside the fire reached 29 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak29 µg/m³

Days over the guideline1 day

PM1058 µg/m³

WHO 15

22232425262728291

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 · 7Every 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

All fires in France ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Escot fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 24 February 2020 and 27 February 2020: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 264 hectares (2.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 4 municipalities: Escot (211 ha, 9.3 %); Oloron-Sainte-Marie (45 ha, 0.7 %); Bilhères (6 ha, 0.3 %); Lurbe-Saint-Christau (2 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.6 km of Lurbe-Saint-Christau. 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 17.5 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 70 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 5, 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

Sécurité civile ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned