Powys fire, May 2023 Powys
The fire started on 23 May 2023 in Powys, United Kingdom, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 303 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 10th largest in Wales since 2016 (of 25 with a page). Number 4 in United Kingdom in 2023, of 11.
The power measured by the satellite is low (4.0 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
- 303ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 23 May 2023 – 26 May 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 23 May
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 6
- in a single hotspot: 4 MW
- Danger at start
- 5
- Very low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 10MW
- sum of detected power
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
-
Powys where it started302 ha reached on 24 May0.1 %
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
- Other natural land100 %
Protected area affected (EFFIS layer): 85 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 May | 15.8 °C | 47 % | 21 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very low 5 |
| 24 May | 17.3 °C | 50 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 25 May | 17.9 °C | 52 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 26 May | 16.7 °C | 54 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 27 May after | 18.5 °C | 33 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 28 May after | 16.3 °C | 56 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 29 May after | 14.0 °C | 55 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 30 May after | 15.0 °C | 61 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 31 May after | 12.6 °C | 72 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 1 Jun after | 15.2 °C | 61 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 2 Jun after | 15.4 °C | 53 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 3 Jun after | 16.6 °C | 50 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 4 Jun after | 17.3 °C | 47 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 5 Jun after | 15.2 °C | 57 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
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 22 May 2023 the air beside the fire reached 15 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 · 6Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,480 haElan Valley PowysApril 2026 · 1 day · 7 km away
- 5,018 haPowys7 April 2025 · 4 days · 8 km away
- 1,322 haPowysMarch 2019 · 2 days · 8 km away
- 6,367 haPowys29 April 2026 · 1 day · 12 km away
- 2,246 haCeredigion24 March 2020 · 4 days · 14 km away
- 692 haCarmarthenshire22 March 2020 · 1 day · 20 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Powys fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 23 May 2023 and 26 May 2023: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 303 hectares (3.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Powys (302 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 17.9 °C, humidity dropped to 47 % and gusts hit 31 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 United Kingdom (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: 999 · 112
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
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 ADM3 (Open Government Licence v3.0). 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.