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Hosta fire, February 2019 Ibarrolle, Saint-Just-Ibarre, Bussunarits-Sarrasquette

Out · last detection 28 Feb 2019, 13:03 UTC

The fire started on 15 February 2019 in Hosta, France, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,120 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 7 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 (18.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Mendive · 2019Aussurucq · 2026Ahaxe-Alciette-Bascassan · 2019Lecumberry · 2019

Burnt area
1,120ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
14days
15 Feb 2019 – 28 Feb 2019
Municipalities hit
7
communes
Started on
15 Feb
2019
Heat detections
63
in a single hotspot: 18 MW
Danger at start
4
Very low · FWI index
Average daily power
34MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Feb28 Feb
28 Feb 2019

How it evolved, day by day

15 Feb 2019 · 10 MW · 3 16 Feb 2019 · 170 MW · 24 17 Feb 2019 · 25 MW · 8 18 Feb 2019 · 50 MW · 8 19 Feb 2019 · 15 MW · 2 21 Feb 2019 · 7 MW · 1 22 Feb 2019 · 65 MW · 6 23 Feb 2019 · 9 MW · 3 26 Feb 2019 · 5 MW · 2 27 Feb 2019 · 20 MW · 5 28 Feb 2019 · 4 MW · 1
15 Feb 16 Feb 17 Feb 19 Feb 22 Feb 26 Feb 28 Feb

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

The weather it burned in

22°high
99km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.1 mm on 4 Mar.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.7% of the area of London (11 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Ibarrolle 73 inhabitants · 0.8 km from the centre
    313 ha reached on 16 Feb
    35 %
  2. Saint-Just-Ibarre
    249 ha reached on 16 Feb
    8.3 %
  3. Bussunarits-Sarrasquette 210 inhabitants · 2.9 km from the centre
    242 ha reached on 17 Feb
    20 %
  4. Hosta 197 inhabitants · 1.2 km from the centre where it started
    204 ha reached on 15 Feb
    12 %
  5. Ahaxe-Alciette-Bascassan 261 inhabitants · 3.0 km from the centre
    44 ha reached on 18 Feb
    3.0 %
  6. Bunus 133 inhabitants · 0.6 km from the centre
    40 ha reached on 16 Feb
    6.0 %
  7. Gamarthe 125 inhabitants · 3.0 km from the centre
    28 ha reached on 15 Feb
    2.9 %

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 land61 %
  • Broadleaved forest32 %
  • Agricultural areas3.9 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland3.5 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 95 %

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)
15 Feb 16.1 °C 20 % 65 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
16 Feb 16.4 °C 21 % 63 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
17 Feb 16.0 °C 19 % 99 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 11
18 Feb 14.6 °C 27 % 76 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
19 Feb 11.9 °C 58 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm Very low 4
20 Feb 15.1 °C 40 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
21 Feb 16.4 °C 36 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
22 Feb 17.0 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
23 Feb 15.6 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
24 Feb 17.4 °C 39 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
25 Feb 18.4 °C 37 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
26 Feb 20.0 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
27 Feb 22.2 °C 13 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
28 Feb 11.9 °C 56 % 39 km/h 0.1 mm Low 7
1 Mar after 10.2 °C 62 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
2 Mar after 11.8 °C 60 % 52 km/h 0.8 mm Very low 4
3 Mar after 19.4 °C 26 % 82 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
4 Mar after 15.6 °C 30 % 98 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 · 8 Feb 2019
After · 7 Mar 2019

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 15 February 2019 the air beside the fire reached 39 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak39 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM1063 µg/m³
13141516171819202122232425262728123
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 · 63Every 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 Hosta fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 15 February 2019 to 28 February 2019 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 15 February 2019 to 23 February 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,120 hectares (11.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 7 municipalities: Ibarrolle (313 ha, 35 %); Saint-Just-Ibarre (249 ha, 8.3 %); Bussunarits-Sarrasquette (242 ha, 20 %); Hosta (204 ha, 12 %); Ahaxe-Alciette-Bascassan (44 ha, 3.0 %); Bunus (40 ha, 6.0 %); Gamarthe (28 ha, 2.9 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 0.6 km of the centre of Bunus, 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 22.2 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 99 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 12, 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.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 15 February 2019 to 23 February 2019. 63 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Probably a vegetation burn: not counted in the totals.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.