How long did the Ossès fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 21 February 2019 and 24 February 2019: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 999 hectares (10.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 4 municipalities: Ossès (722 ha, 17 %); Irissarry (249 ha, 9.4 %); Hélette (29 ha, 1.2 %); Bidarray (0 ha, 0.0 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.0 km of Ossès. 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 19.7 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 30 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.

FR · France · 2019-02-21 → 2019-02-24

Ossès fire, February 2019 Ossès, Irissarry, Hélette

Out · last detection 25 Feb 2019, 14:00 UTC

The fire started on 21 February 2019 in Ossès, France, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 999 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.

The power measured by the satellite is low (26.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 999ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 4days; 21 Feb 2019 – 24 Feb 2019
Municipalities hit: 4; communes
Started on: 21 Feb; 2019
Heat detections: 79; in a single hotspot: 27 MW
Danger at start: 5; Low · FWI index
Energy released: 520MW; sum of detected power

Play back 25 Feb 2019

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Feb24 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

2122232425

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

The weather it burned in

20°high

30km/h · peak gust

32%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.1 mm on 4 Mar.

This area had burned before

19% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 191 ha in 2017.

191 ha Ossès fire, February 2017 266 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Ossès 878 inhabitants · 1.0 km from the town where it started

722 ha reached on 21 Feb

17 %
Irissarry 870 inhabitants · 2.7 km from the town

249 ha reached on 21 Feb

9.4 %
Hélette 758 inhabitants · 1.6 km from the town

29 ha reached on 21 Feb

1.2 %
Bidarray 693 inhabitants · 4.0 km from the town

0 ha reached on 26 Feb

0.0 %

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 land71 %
Broadleaved forest21 %
Scrub and transitional woodland4.2 %
Agricultural areas3.7 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 90 %

LIC La Nive FR7200786
LIC Massif du Baygoura FR7200758

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)
21 Feb	19.7 °C	35 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 5
22 Feb	19.3 °C	32 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
23 Feb	17.4 °C	35 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
24 Feb	18.3 °C	47 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
25 Feb after	18.4 °C	45 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
26 Feb after	22.6 °C	26 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
27 Feb after	24.2 °C	19 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
28 Feb after	14.0 °C	64 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
1 Mar after	12.9 °C	62 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 4
2 Mar after	14.4 °C	60 %	42 km/h	0.4 mm	Low 6
3 Mar after	21.0 °C	30 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 11
4 Mar after	16.9 °C	31 %	60 km/h	6.1 mm	Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 14 Feb 2019

After · 3 Mar 2019

Before After

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 · 79Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in France ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ossès fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 21 February 2019 and 24 February 2019: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 999 hectares (10.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 4 municipalities: Ossès (722 ha, 17 %); Irissarry (249 ha, 9.4 %); Hélette (29 ha, 1.2 %); Bidarray (0 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.0 km of Ossès. 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 19.7 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 30 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

Sécurité civile ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned