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Issor fire, March 2025 Issor, Sarrance, Asasp-Arros

Out · last measured on 7 Mar 2025

The fire started on 7 March 2025 in Issor, France, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 307 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.

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but not yet its hotspots: NASA publishes the yearly hotspot archive only once the year closes. The page picks it up automatically when it is available.

Burnt area
307ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
7 Mar 2025 – 7 Mar 2025
Municipalities hit
4
communes
Started on
7 Mar
2025
Danger at start
0
Very low · FWI index
Natura 2000
100%
of the perimeter is protected land

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

12°high
54km/h · peak gust
53%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.7 mm on 8 Mar.

This area had burned before

91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 184 ha in 2019, 79 ha in 2020, 100 ha in 2021, 127 ha in 2022, 172 ha in 2023, 54 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 278 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Issor 256 inhabitants · 2.5 km from the town where it started
    195 ha
    8.5 %
  2. Sarrance 152 inhabitants · 1.9 km from the town
    73 ha
    1.6 %
  3. Asasp-Arros
    39 ha
    1.6 %
  4. Lourdios-Ichère 145 inhabitants · 1.7 km from the town
    0 ha
    0.0 %

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 land92 %
  • Broadleaved forest5.9 %
  • Agricultural areas2.0 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

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)
7 Mar 12.3 °C 53 % 54 km/h 0.1 mm Very low 0
8 Mar after 13.0 °C 63 % 85 km/h 4.7 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Feb 2025
After · 14 Mar 2025

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 5 March 2025 the air beside the fire reached 10 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak10 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1021 µg/m³
Optical depth0.17
5678910
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 Issor fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 7 March 2025 and 7 March 2025: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 307 hectares (3.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Issor (195 ha, 8.5 %); Sarrance (73 ha, 1.6 %); Asasp-Arros (39 ha, 1.6 %); Lourdios-Ichère (0 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.7 km of Lourdios-Ichère. 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 12.3 °C, humidity dropped to 53 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 0, 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.