Rutali fire, February 2020 Rutali, Olmeta-di-Tuda
The fire started on 11 February 2020 in Rutali, France, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 429 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 10th largest in Haute-Corse since 2016 (of 27 with a page). Number 4 in France in 2020, of 18.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 429ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 11 Feb 2020 – 14 Feb 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- communes
- Started on
- 11 Feb
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 34
- in a single hotspot: 113 MW
- Danger at start
- 7
- Low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 771MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
11 Feb 2020 · 771 MW · 34
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 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
17% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 72 ha in 2017.
What happened to each town
-
325 ha reached on 11 Feb19 %
-
Olmeta-di-Tuda 583 inhabitants · 2.1 km from the centre104 ha reached on 11 Feb6.0 %
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
- Sclerophyllous scrub26 %
- Other natural land25 %
- Broadleaved forest21 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland16 %
- Agricultural areas13 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 36 %
- LIC Cavités à chauves-souris de Castifao, muraccIole, Olmeta di Tuda et Coggia-Temuli FR9400613
- LIC Massif du Tenda et forêt de Stella FR9400598
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 344 ha was recorded in Olmeta-di-Tuda on 10 February 2020 (the satellite measured 429 ha). The record has no coordinates, so it was matched by municipality and date.
- Olmeta-di-Tuda 10 February 2020 · 22:30 344 ha · cause: negligence
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 Feb | 16.9 °C | 41 % | 104 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 12 Feb | 14.7 °C | 20 % | 76 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 13 Feb | 13.4 °C | 42 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 5 |
| 14 Feb | 15.3 °C | 34 % | 78 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 15 Feb after | 13.9 °C | 44 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 5 |
| 16 Feb after | 13.3 °C | 64 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 17 Feb after | 13.7 °C | 65 % | 21 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very low 3 |
| 18 Feb after | 13.6 °C | 57 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 19 Feb after | 12.6 °C | 49 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 20 Feb after | 12.6 °C | 56 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 21 Feb after | 12.6 °C | 65 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 22 Feb after | 13.9 °C | 59 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 23 Feb after | 15.2 °C | 55 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 24 Feb after | 17.0 °C | 56 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
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 12 February 2020 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 · 34Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 2,424 haOlmeta-di-TudaJuly 2017 · 6 days · 2 km away
- 656 haBarbaggioAugust 2016 · 3 days · 8 km away
- 489 haSan-Gavino-di-TendaAugust 2022 · 2 days · 14 km away
- 1,487 haOgliastroAugust 2017 · 3 days · 25 km away
- 396 haOlcaniOctober 2022 · 6 days · 26 km away
- 1,544 haVille-di-ParasoOctober 2017 · 3 days · 27 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Rutali fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 11 February 2020 and 14 February 2020: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 429 hectares (4.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Rutali (325 ha, 19 %); Olmeta-di-Tuda (104 ha, 6.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Rutali and came within 1.7 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 16.9 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 104 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 8, 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 · 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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 34 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with BDIFF: 344 official ha against 429 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- 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.