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Hélette fire, March 2022 Irissarry, Ossès, Hélette

Out · last detection 24 Mar 2022, 13:04 UTC

The fire started on 24 March 2022 in Hélette, France, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 180 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 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 (6.2 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
180ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
24 Mar 2022 – 24 Mar 2022
Municipalities hit
3
communes
Started on
24 Mar
2022
Heat detections
2
in a single hotspot: 6 MW
Danger at start
2
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
11MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Mar24 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

24

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

The weather it burned in

16°high
22km/h · peak gust
43%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 25 Mar.

This area had burned before

91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 79 ha in 2017, 156 ha in 2019, 63 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 164 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Irissarry 870 inhabitants · 3.4 km from the town
    115 ha
    4.3 %
  2. Ossès 878 inhabitants · 3.2 km from the town
    45 ha
    1.1 %
  3. Hélette 758 inhabitants · 1.5 km from the town where it started
    20 ha reached on 24 Mar
    0.8 %

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 land80 %
  • Broadleaved forest17 %
  • Agricultural areas3.3 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 88 %

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 Mar 16.3 °C 43 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
25 Mar after 16.4 °C 55 % 23 km/h 1.3 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Mar 2022
After · 31 Mar 2022

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 2Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in France ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Hélette fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 24 March 2022 and 24 March 2022: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 180 hectares (1.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Irissarry (115 ha, 4.3 %); Ossès (45 ha, 1.1 %); Hélette (20 ha, 0.8 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.5 km of Hélette. 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 16.3 °C, humidity dropped to 43 % and gusts hit 22 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 2, 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

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.