Montegrosso fire, August 2020 Avapessa, Montegrosso, Cateri
The fire started on 27 August 2020 in Montegrosso, France, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 209 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 5 municipalities.
It is the 17th largest in Haute-Corse since 2016 (of 27 with a page). Number 9 in France in 2020, of 18.
The power measured by the satellite is low (11.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
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- Burnt area
- 209ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 27 Aug 2020 – 27 Aug 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 5
- communes
- Started on
- 27 Aug
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 3
- in a single hotspot: 11 MW
- Danger at start
- 29
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 24MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
27 Aug 2020 · 24 MW · 3
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 38 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 13.9 mm on 30 Aug.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
Avapessa 80 inhabitants · fire reached the centre138 ha reached on 27 Aug41 %
-
67 ha reached on 27 Aug3.0 %
-
Cateri 247 inhabitants · 0.7 km from the centre4 ha1.2 %
-
Muro 243 inhabitants · 1.8 km from the centre1 ha0.1 %
-
Lavatoggio 154 inhabitants · 1.2 km from the centre0 ha0.0 %
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 land57 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub35 %
- Broadleaved forest8.6 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2020Inside 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
Official record
According to BDIFF, a fire of 185 ha was recorded in Montegrosso on 27 August 2020 (the satellite measured 209 ha). The record has no coordinates, so it was matched by municipality and date.
- Montegrosso 27 August 2020 · 06:05 185 ha · cause: arson
BDIFF (Base de Données sur les Incendies de Forêts en France). This is the agency’s consolidated statistic: it measures the area in its own way, which is why it can differ from the satellite.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 Aug | 30.5 °C | 32 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 28 Aug after | 28.9 °C | 44 % | 36 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 24 |
| 29 Aug after | 27.8 °C | 48 % | 52 km/h | 0.9 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 30 Aug after | 22.7 °C | 48 % | 70 km/h | 13.9 mm | Very low 4 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 3Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,158 haCalenzanaFebruary 2019 · 3 days · 8 km away
- 1,544 haVille-di-ParasoOctober 2017 · 3 days · 15 km away
- 383 haAlbertacceJuly 2026 · 9 days · 26 km away
- 489 haSan-Gavino-di-TendaAugust 2022 · 2 days · 29 km away
- 1,081 haCorteJuly 2026 · 19 days · 35 km away
- 215 haOlettaOctober 2025 · 1 day · 35 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Montegrosso fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 27 August 2020 and 27 August 2020: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 209 hectares (2.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 5 municipalities: Avapessa (138 ha, 41 %); Montegrosso (67 ha, 3.0 %); Cateri (4 ha, 1.2 %); Muro (1 ha, 0.1 %); Lavatoggio (0 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire reached the centre of Avapessa: 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 30.5 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, class High.
- 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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 3 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with BDIFF: 185 official ha against 209 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- 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.
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.