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Lecumberry fire, 14 February 2019 Lecumberry, Estérençuby, Mendive

Out · last detection 17 Feb 2019, 13:10 UTC

The fire started on 14 February 2019 in Lecumberry, France, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,965 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.

Burnt area
1,965ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
14 Feb 2019 – 16 Feb 2019
Municipalities hit
3
communes
Started on
14 Feb
2019
Heat detections
76
in a single hotspot: 108 MW
Danger at start
1
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
1.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Feb 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Feb16 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

14151617

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

15°high
86km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

7% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 129 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Lecumberry 196 inhabitants · 3.5 km from the town where it started
    1,555 ha reached on 14 Feb
    27 %
  2. Estérençuby 303 inhabitants · 2.9 km from the town
    394 ha reached on 15 Feb
    8.6 %
  3. Mendive 172 inhabitants · 2.6 km from the town
    16 ha reached on 15 Feb
    0.4 %

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 land66 %
  • Broadleaved forest34 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 99 %

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)
14 Feb 13.8 °C 29 % 73 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
15 Feb 14.1 °C 23 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
16 Feb 14.7 °C 22 % 84 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
17 Feb after 14.3 °C 22 % 86 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
18 Feb after 13.2 °C 32 % 76 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
19 Feb after 12.1 °C 54 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
20 Feb after 14.1 °C 45 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
21 Feb after 14.9 °C 42 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
22 Feb after 15.9 °C 37 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
23 Feb after 14.9 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Low 5
24 Feb after 16.4 °C 43 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
25 Feb after 17.4 °C 43 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
26 Feb after 18.4 °C 35 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
27 Feb after 21.3 °C 16 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 11

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Feb 2019
After · 23 Feb 2019

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 15 February 2019 the air beside the fire reached 37 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak37 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1044 µg/m³
121314151617181920
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)

Detections table · 76Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in France ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Lecumberry fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 14 February 2019 and 16 February 2019: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,965 hectares (19.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Lecumberry (1,555 ha, 27 %); Estérençuby (394 ha, 8.6 %); Mendive (16 ha, 0.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.6 km of Mendive. 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 14.7 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 86 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 9, 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

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.