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Mendive fire, February 2019 Mendive, Alçay-Alçabéhéty-Sunharette, Béhorléguy

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

The fire started on 14 February 2019 in Mendive, France, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,916 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 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
2,916ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
9days
14 Feb 2019 – 22 Feb 2019
Municipalities hit
4
communes
Started on
14 Feb
2019
Heat detections
132
in a single hotspot: 58 MW
Danger at start
1
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

22 Feb 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Feb22 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

14151617202122

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

The weather it burned in

18°high
54km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.6 mm on 4 Mar.

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 52 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Mendive 172 inhabitants · 0.5 km from the town where it started
    2,061 ha reached on 15 Feb
    49 %
  2. Alçay-Alçabéhéty-Sunharette 206 inhabitants · 9.0 km from the town
    418 ha reached on 16 Feb
    12 %
  3. Béhorléguy 66 inhabitants · 0.7 km from the town
    408 ha reached on 14 Feb
    20 %
  4. Aussurucq 230 inhabitants · 9.9 km from the town
    30 ha reached on 16 Feb
    0.6 %

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 land67 %
  • Broadleaved forest31 %
  • Agricultural areas1.8 %

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)
14 Feb 16.3 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
15 Feb 16.3 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
16 Feb 17.2 °C 24 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
17 Feb 17.6 °C 22 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
18 Feb 15.1 °C 39 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Low 5
19 Feb 13.6 °C 49 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
20 Feb 15.1 °C 51 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
21 Feb 17.2 °C 44 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
22 Feb 17.6 °C 37 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
23 Feb after 17.4 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
24 Feb after 18.2 °C 48 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
25 Feb after 18.5 °C 45 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
26 Feb after 21.3 °C 30 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
27 Feb after 23.7 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
28 Feb after 14.3 °C 64 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
1 Mar after 13.7 °C 59 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
2 Mar after 14.1 °C 60 % 48 km/h 0.7 mm Very low 4
3 Mar after 20.2 °C 33 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
4 Mar after 15.5 °C 38 % 67 km/h 6.6 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Feb 2019
After · 1 Mar 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.

Detections table · 132Every 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 Mendive fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 14 February 2019 and 22 February 2019: 9 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,916 hectares (29.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Mendive (2,061 ha, 49 %); Alçay-Alçabéhéty-Sunharette (418 ha, 12 %); Béhorléguy (408 ha, 20 %); Aussurucq (30 ha, 0.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.5 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 17.6 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 54 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

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.