Burned area
satellite only544ha
Perimeter published by EFFIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- perimeter revised on 8 March 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
FR · France · –
Sainte-Engrâce fire, February 2023 Sainte-Engrâce, Licq-Athérey, Haux
Out · last detection 18 Feb 2023, 01:35 UTC
The fire started on 15 February 2023 in Sainte-Engrâce, France, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 544 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
This record is most likely a pastoral burn (écobuage) in the Pyrenees, not a forest fire. In winter, grassland and scrub are burnt to renew the pasture, and this fire does not appear in France's official forest fire database (BDIFF). That is why it is left out of the fire rankings.
The power measured by the satellite is low (8.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only4days
15 Feb 2023 to 18 Feb 2023: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 18 Feb 2023, 01:35 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only15 Feb 2023
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 15 Feb 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only9
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 8 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 15 Feb 2023 – 18 Feb 2023
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only29MW
Total radiative power on 15 February 2023; hotspots that day: 5.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 15 Feb 2023
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model2.4FWI · very low
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 6.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 15 Feb 2023, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model14.6°C · 37% RH
High of 14.6 °C and minimum humidity of 37% on 18 February 2023; gusts of 40 km/h on 15 February 2023.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 15 Feb 2023 – 18 Feb 2023
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
· reconstructed perimeterEFFIS (Copernicus) revises the perimeter
What was saved on 24 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 544 ha
- Dates
- 15 Feb 2023 – 18 Feb 2023
- Name
- Sainte-Engrâce
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/sainte-engrace-2023-02?v=2026-10-24A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire sainte-engrace-2023-02.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-02-15 | 5 | 29 | 10.8 | 0.5 | 39 | 11.4 | 40 | 0 | 2.4 | muy_bajo | 1 |
| 2023-02-16 | 0 | 0 | 10.6 | -3.3 | 42 | 6.4 | 23 | 0 | 2.2 | muy_bajo | 1 |
| 2023-02-17 | 3 | 23 | 11.7 | -2 | 44 | 5.5 | 16.2 | 0 | 2.4 | muy_bajo | 1 |
| 2023-02-18 | 1 | 1 | 14.6 | -0.1 | 37 | 8 | 20.5 | 0 | 2.6 | muy_bajo | 1 |
| 2023-02-19 | 0 | 0 | 12 | 0.4 | 59 | 7.1 | 22 | 0 | 2.4 | muy_bajo | 0 |
| 2023-02-20 | 0 | 0 | 14.8 | 2.8 | 49 | 11.8 | 32 | 0 | 2.5 | muy_bajo | 0 |
| 2023-02-21 | 0 | 0 | 12.4 | 4.6 | 54 | 12.1 | 32.8 | 0.3 | 2.3 | muy_bajo | 0 |
| 2023-02-22 | 0 | 0 | 7.3 | 3.5 | 84 | 4.6 | 17.3 | 6.4 | 0 | muy_bajo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: EFFIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 544ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 15 Feb 2023 – 18 Feb 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- communes
- Started on
- 15 Feb
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 9
- in a single hotspot: 8 MW
- Danger at start
- 2
- Very low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 17MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
15 Feb18 Feb
18 Feb 2023
How it evolved, day by day
15 Feb
17 Feb
18 Feb
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
15°high
40km/h · peak gust
37%lowest humidity
It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.4 mm on 22 Feb.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 430 ha in 2019, 382 ha in 2020, 455 ha in 2021, 144 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 529 ha that had burned before.
- 296 ha Sainte-Engrâce fire, February 2019 860 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 264 ha Sainte-Engrâce fire, February 2021 522 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 238 ha Sainte-Engrâce fire, January 2020 275 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 191 ha Sainte-Engrâce fire, March 2021 215 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 144 ha Sainte-Engrâce fire, February 2020 221 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 60 ha Licq-Athérey fire, February 2019 157 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
483 ha reached on 15 Feb6.6 %
-
Licq-Athérey 194 inhabitants · 1.9 km from the centre61 ha reached on 17 Feb3.4 %
-
Haux 84 inhabitants · 3.2 km from the centre0 ha0.0 %
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
- Other natural land83 %
- Broadleaved forest16 %
- Agricultural areas0.6 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- ZEPA Haute Soule : massif de la Pierre Saint-Martin FR7212008
- LIC Le Saison (cours d'eau) FR7200790
- LIC Montagnes du Barétous FR7200749
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Feb | 10.8 °C | 39 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 2 |
| 16 Feb | 10.6 °C | 42 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 2 |
| 17 Feb | 11.7 °C | 44 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 2 |
| 18 Feb | 14.6 °C | 37 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 19 Feb after | 12.0 °C | 59 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 2 |
| 20 Feb after | 14.8 °C | 49 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 2 |
| 21 Feb after | 12.4 °C | 54 % | 33 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very low 2 |
| 22 Feb after | 7.3 °C | 84 % | 17 km/h | 6.4 mm | Very low 0 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 2.4, a minimum humidity of 39% and 6 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 23.
FWI at the start
2.4
Minimum humidity
39 %
Days without rain
6
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Sainte-Engrâce fire, February 2023
544 ha
4 days
FWI 2.4
Min. humidity 39 %
Montory fire, March 2026
114 ha
5 days
FWI 3.6
Min. humidity 39 %
10 km away, in 2026
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.4 mm on 25 Mar.
Bagnères-de-Bigorre fire, February 2019
133 ha
5 days
FWI 3.4
Min. humidity 39 %
81 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.6 mm on 4 Mar.
Lecumberry fire, February 2026
100 ha
2 days
FWI 3.0
Min. humidity 38 %
25 km away, in 2026
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 6.9 mm on 28 Feb.
Arras-en-Lavedan fire, February 2026
141 ha
1 day
FWI 3.2
Min. humidity 40 %
57 km away, in 2026
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.4 mm on 27 Feb.
Osse-en-Aspe fire, March 2026
451 ha
6 days
FWI 0.2
Min. humidity 39 %
17 km away, in 2026
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.4 mm on 25 Mar.
What happened to them
- 3 days
- median duration
- 183 ha
- median area
- 4 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- 3.4 mm
- rain at the end (median; 23 of 23 had it)
It was 3.0 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 4 days, against 3 days.
Only 2 of its 23 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 3.4 mm.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
6.4 mmfirst rain
22 Feb4 days after it ended
40km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 18 Feb, and on 22 Feb 6.4 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 23 of 23, with a median of 3.4 mm.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 8 Feb 2023
After · 25 Feb 2023
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 19 February 2023 the air beside the fire reached 33 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak33 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1055 µg/m³
Optical depth0.87
WHO 15
13 Feb15 Feb17 Feb19 Feb21 Feb
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 · 9Every 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
- 1,172 haLarrau24 February 2026 · 7 days · 9 km away
- 1,316 haAussurucqFebruary 2026 · 7 days · 15 km away
- 2,916 haMendiveFebruary 2019 · 9 days · 22 km away
- 1,965 haLecumberry14 February 2019 · 9 days · 23 km away
- 1,379 haEstérençubyFebruary 2021 · 7 days · 23 km away
- 1,120 haHostaFebruary 2019 · 14 days · 23 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Sainte-Engrâce fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 15 February 2023 and 18 February 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 544 hectares (5.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Sainte-Engrâce (483 ha, 6.6 %); Licq-Athérey (61 ha, 3.4 %); Haux (0 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Sainte-Engrâce and came within 0.6 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 14.6 °C, humidity dropped to 37 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 3, 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.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 23. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 183 ha; 4 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 2 of its 23 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 3.4 mm.
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.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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. 9 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Probably a vegetation burn: not counted in the totals.
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.