How long did the Rodès fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 11 August 2016 and 11 August 2016: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,452 hectares (14.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 4 municipalities: Rodès (583 ha, 31 %); Ille-sur-Têt (543 ha, 17 %); Montalba-le-Château (322 ha, 20 %); Bouleternère (5 ha, 0.4 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.0 km of Rodès. 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 24.3 °C, humidity dropped to 37 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 10, 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 · 2016-08-11 → 2016-08-11

Rodès fire, August 2016 Rodès, Ille-sur-Têt, Montalba-le-Château

Out · last detection 11 Aug 2016, 12:20 UTC

The fire started on 11 August 2016 in Rodès, France, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,452 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.

Number 2 in France in 2016, of 11.

Burnt area: 1,452ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 1day; 11 Aug 2016 – 11 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit: 4; communes
Started on: 11 Aug; 2016
Heat detections: 56; in a single hotspot: 209 MW
Danger at start: 10; Low · FWI index
Energy released: 3.2GW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Aug11 Aug

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

24°high

56km/h · peak gust

37%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.5 mm on 16 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

Rodès 758 inhabitants · 0.0 km from the town where it started

583 ha reached on 11 Aug

31 %
Ille-sur-Têt 5,556 inhabitants · 1.6 km from the town

543 ha reached on 11 Aug

17 %
Montalba-le-Château 163 inhabitants · 0.6 km from the town

322 ha reached on 11 Aug

20 %
Bouleternère 951 inhabitants · 1.4 km from the town

5 ha reached on 11 Aug

0.4 %

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 scrub71 %
Scrub and transitional woodland15 %
Agricultural areas14 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 20 %

LIC Fenouillèdes FR9101490
LIC Sites à chiroptères des Pyrénées orientales FR9102010

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 1,308 ha was recorded in Montalba-le-Château on 11 August 2016 (the satellite measured 1,452 ha). The record has no coordinates, so it was matched by municipality and date.

Montalba-le-Château 11 August 2016 · 07:52 1,308 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)
11 Aug	24.3 °C	37 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
12 Aug after	28.1 °C	40 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
13 Aug after	28.8 °C	40 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 11
14 Aug after	29.5 °C	49 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 11
15 Aug after	29.2 °C	57 %	30 km/h	0.2 mm	Low 10
16 Aug after	29.1 °C	58 %	24 km/h	3.5 mm	Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 4 Aug 2016

After · 18 Aug 2016

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 · 56Every 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 Rodès fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 11 August 2016 and 11 August 2016: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,452 hectares (14.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 4 municipalities: Rodès (583 ha, 31 %); Ille-sur-Têt (543 ha, 17 %); Montalba-le-Château (322 ha, 20 %); Bouleternère (5 ha, 0.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.0 km of Rodès. 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 24.3 °C, humidity dropped to 37 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 10, 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 do you think is wrong?

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

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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