Palneca fire, December 2018 Palneca
The fire started on 31 December 2018 in Palneca, France, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 134 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
Number 3 in France in 2018, of 4.
The power measured by the satellite is low (14.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 134ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 5days
- 31 Dec 2018 – 4 Jan 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- communes
- Started on
- 31 Dec
- 2018
- Heat detections
- 20
- in a single hotspot: 14 MW
- Danger at start
- 1
- Very low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 20MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
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 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
134 ha reached on 31 Dec3.1 %
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 land73 %
- Broadleaved forest27 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 6 %
- ZEPA Forêts Territoriales de Corse FR9410113
- LIC Massif du Renoso FR9400611
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.
Official record
According to BDIFF, a fire of 79 ha was recorded in Palneca on 1 January 2019 (the satellite measured 134 ha). The record has no coordinates, so it was matched by municipality and date. The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.
- Palneca 1 January 2019 · 21:14 79 ha
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Jan | 6.2 °C | 58 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 2 Jan | 6.8 °C | 37 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 2 |
| 3 Jan | 0.9 °C | 35 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 4 Jan | -1.3 °C | 41 % | 23 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very low 1 |
| 5 Jan after | 1.5 °C | 61 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 6 Jan after | 4.0 °C | 47 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 7 Jan after | 4.3 °C | 56 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 8 Jan after | 1.2 °C | 71 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 9 Jan after | 3.3 °C | 31 % | 41 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very low 1 |
| 10 Jan after | 0.4 °C | 31 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 11 Jan after | -1.1 °C | 48 % | 32 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very low 1 |
| 12 Jan after | 2.1 °C | 36 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 7 January 2019 the air beside the fire reached 10 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
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 · 20Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Palneca fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 31 December 2018 to 4 January 2019 (5 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 January 2019 to 2 January 2019.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 134 hectares (1.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Palneca (134 ha, 3.1 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Palneca and came within 3.9 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 6.8 °C, humidity dropped to 37 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 2, 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 · 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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 1 January 2019 to 2 January 2019. 20 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with BDIFF: 79 official ha against 134 ha of perimeter; similar, but with reservations.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.