La Teste-de-Buch fire, July 2022 La Teste-de-Buch
The fire started on 12 July 2022 in La Teste-de-Buch, France, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 5,806 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 4th largest in Gironde since 2016 (of 12 with a page). Number 3 in France in 2022, of 49.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 5,806ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 8days
- 12 Jul 2022 – 19 Jul 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- communes
- Started on
- 12 Jul
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 598
- in a single hotspot: 100 MW
- Danger at start
- 13
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.3GW
- 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: 1.2 mm on 25 Jul.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
5,804 ha reached on 13 Jul33 %
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
- Coniferous forest88 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland7.1 %
- Artificial surfaces2.1 %
- Mixed forest1.5 %
- Other natural land0.8 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 66 %
- LIC Dunes modernes du littoral landais d'Arcachon à Mimizan Plage FR7200710
- LIC Forêts dunaires de la Teste-de-Buch FR7200702
- LIC Zones humides de l'arrière dune des pays de Born et de Buch FR7200714
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.
Official record
According to BDIFF, a fire of 5,709 ha was recorded in La Teste-de-Buch on 12 July 2022 (the satellite measured 5,806 ha). The record has no coordinates, so it was matched by municipality and date.
- La Teste-de-Buch 12 July 2022 · 14:36 5,709 ha
BDIFF (Base de Données sur les Incendies de Forêts en France). This is the agency’s consolidated statistic: it measures the area in its own way, which is why it can differ from the satellite.
Checked against the press
Checked on 30 September 2026We checked this page against 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:
- Also known as
- Feu de La Teste-de-Buch · Incendie de la dune du Pilat · Incendies de Gironde 2022 (junto a Landiras)
- Official area reported: 5,800 ha (the satellite measured 5,806 ha)
- Declared extinguished: 26 August 2022
Sources
- Forêt de La Teste-de-Buch: un an après l'incendie, l'ONF dresse le bilan — ONF (Office national des forêts), 22 June 2023 · official source
- Un été marqué par les feux de forêt de Landiras, La Teste-de-Buch, Saint-Magne et Saumos (33) — Observatoire Régional des Risques Nouvelle-Aquitaine (ORRNA), 17 October 2022 · official source
- Incendies de 2022 dans la forêt des Landes — Wikipedia fr (solo pista)
- Incendie du 12 juillet 2022 — Dune du Pilat (sitio oficial del gestor del sitio)
Official figures are measured differently from satellite ones and sometimes cover only part of the fire.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Jul | 33.8 °C | 29 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 13 Jul | 33.4 °C | 24 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 14 Jul | 30.1 °C | 47 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 15 Jul | 30.3 °C | 38 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 16 Jul | 34.9 °C | 25 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 17 Jul | 36.8 °C | 22 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 18 Jul | 39.0 °C | 22 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 19 Jul | 27.6 °C | 50 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 20 Jul after | 23.7 °C | 68 % | 36 km/h | 0.6 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 21 Jul after | 26.2 °C | 55 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 22 Jul after | 22.8 °C | 63 % | 48 km/h | 1.0 mm | Low 11 |
| 23 Jul after | 23.6 °C | 61 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 11 |
| 24 Jul after | 33.1 °C | 33 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 25 Jul after | 23.3 °C | 66 % | 42 km/h | 1.2 mm | Low 11 |
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 18 July 2022 the air beside the fire reached 86 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 42: 2.8 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 · 598Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the La Teste-de-Buch fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 12 July 2022 to 19 July 2022 (8 days). The perimeter dates it from 12 July 2022 to 17 July 2022.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 5,806 hectares (58.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered La Teste-de-Buch (5,804 ha, 33 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in La Teste-de-Buch and came within 3.3 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 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, class High.
- 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 12 July 2022 to 17 July 2022. 598 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with BDIFF: 5,709 official ha against 5,806 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- Checked against news and agencies: 4 confirmed sources.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.