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UK · United Kingdom · –

Wiltshire fire, July 2026 Wiltshire

Out · last detection 3 Jul 2026, 13:29 UTC

The fire started on 2 July 2026 in Wiltshire, United Kingdom, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 391 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 11th largest in England since 2016 (of 29 with a page). Number 11 in United Kingdom in 2026, of 21.

The power measured by the satellite is low (12.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Powys · 2026Merthyr Tydfil · 2026Wiltshire · 2018Wiltshire · 2022

Burnt area
391ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
≈ 2days
2 Jul 2026 – 3 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
2 Jul
2026
Heat detections
20
in a single hotspot: 12 MW
Danger at start
19
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
56MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Jul3 Jul
3 Jul 2026

How it evolved, day by day

2 Jul 2026 · 89 MW · 13 3 Jul 2026 · 23 MW · 7
2 Jul 3 Jul

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

The weather it burned in

24°high
44km/h · peak gust
40%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

88% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 266 ha in 2018, 76 ha in 2021, 226 ha in 2022, 73 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 346 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Wiltshire where it started
    390 ha reached on 2 Jul
    0.1 %

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)
2 Jul 24.2 °C 40 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
3 Jul 23.8 °C 43 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
4 Jul after 23.7 °C 58 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
5 Jul after 26.0 °C 53 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
6 Jul after 28.7 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
7 Jul after 28.2 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
8 Jul after 30.2 °C 34 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
9 Jul after 31.5 °C 32 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
10 Jul after 32.0 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
11 Jul after 30.3 °C 32 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Jul after 30.0 °C 35 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
13 Jul after 26.6 °C 41 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 19.0, a minimum humidity of 40% and 1 day without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2018: 19.

FWI at the start 19.0
Minimum humidity 40 %
Days without rain 1
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Powys fire, August 2026
701 ha 10 days FWI 18.2 Min. humidity 39 % 112 km away, in 2026

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.0 mm on 19 Aug.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

3 days
median duration
223 ha
median area
11 %
went past 1,000 ha
6.3 mm
rain at the end (median; 17 of 19 had it)

It was 1.8 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 2 days, against 3 days.

Only 5 of its 19 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. In 2 of 19, 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 6.3 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

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
44km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 3 Jul, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 17 of 19, with a median of 6.3 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.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Jun 2026
After · 10 Jul 2026

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 · Copernicus

On 3 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 6 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak6 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1011 µg/m³
Optical depth0.33
30 Jun2 Jul4 Jul
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 · 20Every 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 United Kingdom

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Wiltshire fire last?
The official perimeter only gives the start date (2 July 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 3 July 2026 (2 days from 2 July 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 391 hectares (3.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Wiltshire (390 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 24.2 °C, humidity dropped to 40 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 19, class Moderate.
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: 19. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 223 ha; 11 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 5 of its 19 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. In 2 of 19, 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 6.3 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
What do you think is wrong?

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 999 · 112.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 20 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.