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Sarrance fire, January 2022 Lourdios-Ichère, Sarrance

Out · last detection 29 Jan 2022, 13:16 UTC

The fire started on 29 January 2022 in Sarrance, France, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 273 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 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 (15.3 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
273ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
29 Jan 2022 – 29 Jan 2022
Municipalities hit
2
communes
Started on
29 Jan
2022
Heat detections
8
in a single hotspot: 15 MW
Danger at start
2
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
58MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Jan29 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

29

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

10°high
22km/h · peak gust
52%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.4 mm on 31 Jan.

This area had burned before

96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 105 ha in 2017, 183 ha in 2019, 247 ha in 2020, 187 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 262 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Lourdios-Ichère 145 inhabitants · 0.5 km from the town
    151 ha reached on 29 Jan
    9.3 %
  2. Sarrance 152 inhabitants · 2.0 km from the town where it started
    122 ha reached on 29 Jan
    2.6 %

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 land89 %
  • Agricultural areas5.8 %
  • Broadleaved forest5.0 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

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)
29 Jan 10.1 °C 52 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
30 Jan after 9.7 °C 50 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
31 Jan after 7.9 °C 80 % 60 km/h 4.4 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Jan 2022
After · 5 Feb 2022

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 · 8Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in France ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Sarrance fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 29 January 2022 and 29 January 2022: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 273 hectares (2.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Lourdios-Ichère (151 ha, 9.3 %); Sarrance (122 ha, 2.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.5 km of Lourdios-Ichère. 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 10.1 °C, humidity dropped to 52 % and gusts hit 22 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 2, 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.

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

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
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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.