How long did the Lantabat fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 15 February 2019 to 22 February 2019 (8 days). The perimeter dates it from 15 February 2019 to 18 February 2019.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,007 hectares (10.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 5 municipalities: Lantabat (591 ha, 20 %); Larceveau-Arros-Cibits (225 ha, 12 %); Iholdy (67 ha, 3.1 %); Ainhice-Mongelos (63 ha, 6.2 %); Ostabat-Asme (60 ha, 3.9 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire reached the centre of Larceveau-Arros-Cibits: the point marking it was inside the burnt area or less than 500 metres from it. That does not mean houses burned.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 19.9 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 10, 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.

FR · France · 2019-02-15 → 2019-02-22

Lantabat fire, February 2019 Lantabat, Larceveau-Arros-Cibits, Iholdy

Out · last detection 22 Feb 2019, 13:16 UTC

The fire started on 15 February 2019 in Lantabat, France, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,007 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 5 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.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Hosta · 2019 Ahaxe-Alciette-Bascassan · 2019 Mendive · 2019 Saint-Étienne-de-Baïgorry · 2019

Burnt area: 1,007ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 8days; 15 Feb 2019 – 22 Feb 2019
Municipalities hit: 5; communes
Started on: 15 Feb; 2019
Heat detections: 41; in a single hotspot: 35 MW
Danger at start: 5; Very low · FWI index
Average daily power: 45MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Feb22 Feb

Play back 22 Feb 2019

How it evolved, day by day

15 Feb 16 Feb 17 Feb 18 Feb 20 Feb 22 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

20°high

48km/h · peak gust

18%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 0.6% of the area of London (10 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

Lantabat 297 inhabitants · 0.8 km from the centre where it started

591 ha reached on 15 Feb

20 %
Larceveau-Arros-Cibits 449 inhabitants · fire reached the centre

225 ha reached on 16 Feb

12 %
Iholdy 550 inhabitants · 3.3 km from the centre

67 ha reached on 15 Feb

3.1 %
Ainhice-Mongelos 168 inhabitants · 1.6 km from the centre

63 ha reached on 18 Feb

6.2 %
Ostabat-Asme 226 inhabitants · 1.9 km from the centre

60 ha reached on 17 Feb

3.9 %

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 land85 %
Broadleaved forest8.9 %
Agricultural areas4.5 %
Scrub and transitional woodland1.3 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 1 %

LIC La Bidouze (cours d'eau) FR7200789

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020

Built-up area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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	18.7 °C	23 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 5
16 Feb	19.5 °C	21 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
17 Feb	19.9 °C	18 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
18 Feb	16.6 °C	38 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 7
19 Feb	13.4 °C	62 %	22 km/h	0.1 mm	Very low 3
20 Feb	16.6 °C	49 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 4
21 Feb	19.9 °C	35 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 5
22 Feb	19.5 °C	32 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
23 Feb after	17.6 °C	35 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
24 Feb after	18.5 °C	47 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
25 Feb after	18.6 °C	45 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
26 Feb after	22.8 °C	27 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
27 Feb after	24.4 °C	19 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
28 Feb after	14.2 °C	64 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 8 Feb 2019

After · 1 Mar 2019

Before After

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 · 41Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in France ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Lantabat fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 15 February 2019 to 22 February 2019 (8 days). The perimeter dates it from 15 February 2019 to 18 February 2019.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,007 hectares (10.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 5 municipalities: Lantabat (591 ha, 20 %); Larceveau-Arros-Cibits (225 ha, 12 %); Iholdy (67 ha, 3.1 %); Ainhice-Mongelos (63 ha, 6.2 %); Ostabat-Asme (60 ha, 3.9 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire reached the centre of Larceveau-Arros-Cibits: the point marking it was inside the burnt area or less than 500 metres from it. That does not mean houses burned.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 19.9 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 10, 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 ›

Sécurité civile ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

25 October 2026 Last day with fire: 18 February 2019 → 22 February 2019.

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.

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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 15 February 2019 to 18 February 2019. 41 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.
Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.

Where it burned