Saulgé fire, July 2026 Lathus-Saint-Rémy, Saulgé, Montmorillon
The fire started on 20 July 2026 in Saulgé, France, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 208 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.
Number 52 in France in 2026, of 114.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Chalais · 2019Oulches · 2021
We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but not yet its hotspots: NASA publishes the yearly hotspot archive only once the year closes. The page picks it up automatically when it is available.
- Burnt area
- 208ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 20 Jul 2026 – 20 Jul 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 4
- communes
- Started on
- 20 Jul
- 2026
- Danger at start
- 24
- High · FWI index
- Natura 2000
- 100%
- of the perimeter is protected land
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.2 mm on 25 Jul.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
Lathus-Saint-Rémy 1,214 inhabitants · 3.8 km from the centre73 ha0.7 %
-
58 ha0.9 %
-
Montmorillon 5,821 inhabitants · 6.3 km from the centre53 ha0.9 %
-
Bourg-Archambault 170 inhabitants · 4.9 km from the centre24 ha1.0 %
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
- Agricultural areas67 %
- Other natural land33 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- LIC Brandes de Montmorillon FR5400460
- ZEPA Camp de Montmorillon, Landes de Sainte-Marie FR5412015
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 0.15 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 Jul | 29.0 °C | 18 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 21 Jul after | 27.9 °C | 21 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 22 Jul after | 29.8 °C | 19 % | 15 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 23 Jul after | 29.8 °C | 21 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 24 Jul after | 34.0 °C | 12 % | 15 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 25 Jul after | 30.1 °C | 30 % | 12 km/h | 3.2 mm | Low 7 |
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 19 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 10 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)
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Saulgé fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 20 July 2026 and 20 July 2026: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 208 hectares (2.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 4 municipalities: Lathus-Saint-Rémy (73 ha, 0.7 %); Saulgé (58 ha, 0.9 %); Montmorillon (53 ha, 0.9 %); Bourg-Archambault (24 ha, 1.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 3.8 km of the centre of Lathus-Saint-Rémy, the closest of the areas it touched. 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 29.0 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 19 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, class High.
- 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. No 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.