Burned area
satellite only302ha
Perimeter published by EFFIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- perimeter revised on 10 July 2025
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
UK · United Kingdom · –
Wiltshire fire, March 2025 Wiltshire
Out · last detection 9 Mar 2025, 02:09 UTC
The fire started on 8 March 2025 in Wiltshire, United Kingdom, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 302 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
This entry is probably a heather, gorse or hill-grazing burn, not a wildfire. In the UK and Ireland moors and hillsides are burnt every winter and spring to renew grazing or heather. This is our assumption, based on the time of year, ground with almost no woodland and the lack of news about this fire; it is not confirmed. That is why it is left out of the wildfire rankings.
The power measured by the satellite is low (1.3 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 only2days
8 Mar 2025 to 9 Mar 2025: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 9 Mar 2025, 02:09 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 only8 Mar 2025
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 8 Mar 2025
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only1
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 1 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 8 Mar 2025 – 9 Mar 2025
+− 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 only1MW
Total radiative power on 9 March 2025; hotspots that day: 1.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 9 Mar 2025
+− 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
model4.6FWI · very low
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 9.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 8 Mar 2025, 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
model16.2°C · 48% RH
High of 16.2 °C and minimum humidity of 48% on 9 March 2025; gusts of 37 km/h on 8 March 2025.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 8 Mar 2025 – 9 Mar 2025
- 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
- 302 ha
- Dates
- 8 Mar 2025 – 9 Mar 2025
- Name
- Wiltshire
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/wiltshire-2025-03?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 wiltshire-2025-03.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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-03-08 | 0 | 0 | 15.1 | 7.3 | 55 | 17.9 | 37.4 | 0 | 4.6 | muy_bajo | 1 |
| 2025-03-09 | 1 | 1 | 16.2 | 6.5 | 48 | 17.3 | 33.5 | 0 | 5.2 | bajo | 1 |
| 2025-03-10 | 0 | 0 | 11.7 | 7.7 | 71 | 21.3 | 39.2 | 3.7 | 0.6 | 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
- 302ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 8 Mar 2025 – 9 Mar 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 8 Mar
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 1
- in a single hotspot: 1 MW
- Danger at start
- 5
- Very low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
8 Mar9 Mar
How it evolved, day by day
9 Mar 2025 · 1 MW · 1
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
16°high
37km/h · peak gust
48%lowest humidity
It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.7 mm on 10 Mar.
This area had burned before
57% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 70 ha in 2018, 77 ha in 2021, 76 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 173 ha that had burned before.
- 77 ha Wiltshire fire, March 2021 126 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 70 ha Wiltshire fire, July 2018 1,478 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7 ha Wiltshire fire, July 2022 223 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Wiltshire where it started301 ha reached on 9 Mar0.1 %
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 land100 %
Protected area affected (EFFIS layer): 100 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 Mar | 15.1 °C | 55 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 5 |
| 9 Mar | 16.2 °C | 48 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 5 |
| 10 Mar after | 11.7 °C | 71 % | 39 km/h | 3.7 mm | Very low 1 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 4.6, a minimum humidity of 55% and 9 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2018: 16.
FWI at the start
4.6
Minimum humidity
55 %
Days without rain
9
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Wiltshire fire, March 2025
302 ha
2 days
FWI 4.6
Min. humidity 55 %
Devon fire, May 2025
383 ha
2 days
FWI 5.9
Min. humidity 55 %
162 km away, in 2025
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 4.3 mm on 11 May.
Wiltshire fire, May 2025
114 ha
2 days
FWI 7.7
Min. humidity 55 %
4 km away, in 2025
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 9.4 mm on 21 May.
Powys fire, April 2022
127 ha
1 day
FWI 2.1
Min. humidity 55 %
131 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 7.4 mm on 1 May.
Powys fire, April 2018
142 ha
1 day
FWI 2.5
Min. humidity 58 %
138 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 11.3 mm on 24 Apr.
Ceredigion fire, March 2020
2,246 ha
6 days
FWI 0.7
Min. humidity 52 %
164 km away, in 2020
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.0 mm on 5 Apr.
What happened to them
- 2 days
- median duration
- 207 ha
- median area
- 19 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- 6.4 mm
- rain at the end (median; 14 of 16 had it)
It burned an area similar to its twins (302 ha against a median of 207 ha) and lasted 2 days, against 2 days.
In 2 of 16, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 6.4 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
3.7 mmfirst rain
10 Marthe day after it ended
37km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 9 Mar, and on 10 Mar 3.7 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 14 of 16, with a median of 6.4 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 2018.
- 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 · 1 Mar 2025
After · 16 Mar 2025
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 10 March 2025 the air beside the fire reached 47 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 37: 2.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak47 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1050 µg/m³
Optical depth0.71
WHO 15
6 Mar8 Mar10 Mar12 Mar
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 · 1Every 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
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Wiltshire fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 8 March 2025 and 9 March 2025: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 302 hectares (3.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Wiltshire (301 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 16.2 °C, humidity dropped to 48 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 5, class Low.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of United Kingdom (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 2018 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 16. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 207 ha; 19 % went past 1,000 ha. In 2 of 16, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 6.4 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: 999 · 112 · 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. One Suomi-NPP VIIRS detection 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 ADM3 (Open Government Licence v3.0). 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.