Jaxu fire, February 2023 Jaxu, Saint-Jean-le-Vieux, Ispoure
The fire started on 16 February 2023 in Jaxu, France, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 271 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 (21.8 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…
- Burnt area
- 271ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 5days
- 16 Feb 2023 – 20 Feb 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- communes
- Started on
- 16 Feb
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 10
- in a single hotspot: 22 MW
- Danger at start
- 4
- Very low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 39MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.5 mm on 22 Feb.
This area had burned before
47% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 114 ha in 2019, 33 ha in 2021, 3 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 128 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
258 ha reached on 16 Feb24 %
-
Saint-Jean-le-Vieux 900 inhabitants · 3.6 km from the centre13 ha1.1 %
-
Ispoure 667 inhabitants · 2.4 km from the centre0 ha0.0 %
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 land51 %
- Agricultural areas22 %
- Mixed forest14 %
- Broadleaved forest12 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 8 %
- LIC La Nive FR7200786
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Feb | 15.5 °C | 43 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 17 Feb | 16.2 °C | 48 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 18 Feb | 19.2 °C | 32 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 19 Feb | 15.1 °C | 67 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 20 Feb | 20.8 °C | 41 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 21 Feb after | 17.5 °C | 45 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 5 |
| 22 Feb after | 11.5 °C | 81 % | 24 km/h | 4.5 mm | Very low 0 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 22 February 2023 the air beside the fire reached 45 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 28: 1.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 10Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,074 haAhaxe-Alciette-BascassanFebruary 2019 · 8 days · 9 km away
- 1,051 haSaint-Étienne-de-Baïgorry15 February 2019 · 6 days · 11 km away
- 2,916 haMendiveFebruary 2019 · 9 days · 13 km away
- 1,120 haHostaFebruary 2019 · 14 days · 13 km away
- 1,965 haLecumberry14 February 2019 · 9 days · 16 km away
- 1,379 haEstérençubyFebruary 2021 · 7 days · 16 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Jaxu fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 February 2023 to 20 February 2023 (5 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 February 2023 to 18 February 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 271 hectares (2.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Jaxu (258 ha, 24 %); Saint-Jean-le-Vieux (13 ha, 1.1 %); Ispoure (0 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Jaxu and came within 1.3 km of its centre. 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 19.2 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 23 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 6, class 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 · 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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 16 February 2023 to 18 February 2023. 10 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.
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.