How long did the Pigna fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 25 July 2023 and 26 July 2023: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 160 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 4 municipalities: Santa-Reparata-di-Balagna (75 ha, 7.4 %); Pigna (63 ha, 29 %); Corbara (14 ha, 1.3 %); Sant'Antonino (9 ha, 2.1 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.3 km of Santa-Reparata-di-Balagna. 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 30.9 °C, humidity dropped to 41 % and gusts hit 78 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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.

FR · France · 2023-07-25 → 2023-07-26

Pigna fire, July 2023 Santa-Reparata-di-Balagna, Pigna, Corbara

Out · last detection 26 Jul 2023, 00:31 UTC

The fire started on 25 July 2023 in Pigna, France, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 160 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the 21th largest in Haute-Corse since 2016 (of 27 with a page). Number 5 in France in 2023, of 9.

The power measured by the satellite is low (25.5 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: 160ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 2days; 25 Jul 2023 – 26 Jul 2023
Municipalities hit: 4; communes
Started on: 25 Jul; 2023
Heat detections: 19; in a single hotspot: 25 MW
Danger at start: 34; High · FWI index
Energy released: 209MW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Jul26 Jul

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

31°high

78km/h · peak gust

41%lowest humidity

It had gone 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 5 Aug.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

Santa-Reparata-di-Balagna 1,024 inhabitants · 0.3 km from the town

75 ha reached on 26 Jul

7.4 %
Pigna 128 inhabitants · 0.3 km from the town where it started

63 ha reached on 26 Jul

29 %
Corbara 962 inhabitants · 1.0 km from the town

14 ha reached on 26 Jul

1.3 %
Sant'Antonino 127 inhabitants · 0.4 km from the town

9 ha

2.1 %

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

Sclerophyllous scrub28 %
Scrub and transitional woodland27 %
Agricultural areas18 %
Broadleaved forest17 %
Other natural land9.5 %

Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.

Official record

According to BDIFF, a fire of 162 ha was recorded in Pigna on 25 July 2023 (the satellite measured 160 ha). The record has no coordinates, so it was matched by municipality and date.

Pigna 25 July 2023 · 22:15 162 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)
25 Jul	30.9 °C	41 %	78 km/h	0.3 mm	High 34
26 Jul	27.8 °C	44 %	73 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
27 Jul after	28.9 °C	41 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
28 Jul after	28.5 °C	53 %	34 km/h	0.3 mm	Moderate 18
29 Jul after	30.0 °C	54 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
30 Jul after	32.0 °C	38 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
31 Jul after	30.7 °C	32 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
1 Aug after	30.5 °C	30 %	62 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
2 Aug after	29.8 °C	44 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
3 Aug after	30.8 °C	58 %	46 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 21
4 Aug after	24.7 °C	51 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
5 Aug after	27.9 °C	39 %	40 km/h	1.7 mm	Moderate 13

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 18 Jul 2023

After · 2 Aug 2023

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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 25 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 24 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak24 µg/m³

Days over the guideline4 days

PM1070 µg/m³

Optical depth0.62

WHO 15

23242526272829

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)

Detections table · 19Every 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 Pigna fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 25 July 2023 and 26 July 2023: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 160 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 4 municipalities: Santa-Reparata-di-Balagna (75 ha, 7.4 %); Pigna (63 ha, 29 %); Corbara (14 ha, 1.3 %); Sant'Antonino (9 ha, 2.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.3 km of Santa-Reparata-di-Balagna. 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 30.9 °C, humidity dropped to 41 % and gusts hit 78 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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

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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Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

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