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Larrau fire, 22 March 2023 Larrau

Out · last measured on 23 Mar 2023

The fire started on 22 March 2023 in Larrau, France, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 162 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

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: Larrau · 2021Larrau · 2019Larrau · 2026Aussurucq · 2026

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
162ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
22 Mar 2023 – 23 Mar 2023
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
22 Mar
2023
Danger at start
1
Very low · FWI index
Natura 2000
100%
of the perimeter is protected land

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

17°high
33km/h · peak gust
36%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 9.2 mm on 26 Mar.

This area had burned before

84% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 80 ha in 2019, 127 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 136 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Larrau 179 inhabitants · 3.5 km from the centre where it started
    162 ha
    1.3 %

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 land80 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland15 %
  • Broadleaved forest5.4 %

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)
22 Mar 17.0 °C 36 % 33 km/h 0.3 mm Very low 1
23 Mar 18.6 °C 38 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
24 Mar after 13.9 °C 46 % 49 km/h 0.5 mm Very low 3
25 Mar after 15.0 °C 40 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
26 Mar after 10.9 °C 53 % 79 km/h 9.2 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Mar 2023
After · 30 Mar 2023

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 24 March 2023 the air beside the fire reached 11 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak11 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1018 µg/m³
Optical depth0.52
202122232425
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 Larrau fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 22 March 2023 to 23 March 2023 (2 days). The perimeter dates it from 22 March 2023 to 22 March 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 162 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Larrau (162 ha, 1.3 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Larrau and came within 3.5 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 17.0 °C, humidity dropped to 36 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 1, 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 · 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.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 22 March 2023 to 22 March 2023. No 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.