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Mendive fire, 2 March 2021 Mendive, Béhorléguy

Out · last measured on 2 Mar 2021

The fire started on 2 March 2021 in Mendive, France, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 118 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 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.

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
118ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
2 Mar 2021 – 2 Mar 2021
Municipalities hit
2
communes
Started on
2 Mar
2021
Danger at start
0
Very low · FWI index
Natura 2000
47%
of the perimeter is protected land

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

15°high
61km/h · peak gust
52%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 mm on 5 Mar.

This area had burned before

80% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 94 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Mendive 172 inhabitants · 0.4 km from the town where it started
    79 ha
    1.9 %
  2. Béhorléguy 66 inhabitants · 0.8 km from the town
    39 ha
    1.9 %

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 land90 %
  • Agricultural areas7.8 %
  • Broadleaved forest1.7 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 47 %

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)
2 Mar 14.8 °C 52 % 61 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 0
3 Mar after 15.2 °C 58 % 38 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 1
4 Mar after 15.7 °C 55 % 23 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 1
5 Mar after 13.1 °C 69 % 33 km/h 1.8 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Feb 2021
After · 9 Mar 2021

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 3 March 2021 the air beside the fire reached 45 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 35: 2.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak45 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM1087 µg/m³
2812345
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 Mendive fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 2 March 2021 and 2 March 2021: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 118 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mendive (79 ha, 1.9 %); Béhorléguy (39 ha, 1.9 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.4 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 14.8 °C, humidity dropped to 52 % and gusts hit 61 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 0, 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

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.