Fire near Vesdun

46.54°N, 2.43°E · first detected on 19 August at 14:58

What the satellites measured

This fire was tracked from 19 August at 14:58 to 19 August at 16:59, through 11 satellite detections. The detected extent reaches 341 ha.

Detected extent: 341 ha
Cumulative power: 141 MW
Peak power: 22 MW
Detections: 11

“Detected extent” is not “burned area”: it is the union of the ground footprints of the satellite pixels, and a 375 m pixel counts in full even when only a forest edge is burning. Compared with press figures it is in practice one and a half to three times the area reported. Detections taken at the edge of the scan swath, too coarse to measure anything at all, are excluded. These figures come from thermal satellite detection and are not an official assessment: only the local fire and civil protection authorities are authoritative.

Replay how the fire spread

The map is framed on this fire and loads only its detections. The timeline below covers the whole known life of the fire — from the first trace, satellite or report, to the last announcement from emergency services — and the ticks on the bar mark those announcements. Detections often stop before containment: a fire stops radiating once it stops spreading, which is exactly when it is declared contained. “1 h” shows what is burning within an hour of the chosen moment : the map then follows the power curve below and empties when it falls. “12 h” stacks twelve hours , as the home map does, where stacking avoids an empty screen between two satellite passes. Both are true, but they say different things.

The detected extent

Outline of the burned area near Vesdun, drawn over satellite imagery — The outline is the union of the ground footprints of every satellite detection of this fire, from the first pass to the last. The background is the EOX cloudless Sentinel-2 mosaic, 2024 vintage: it shows the landscape BEFORE these fires, not the burn scar.

How the radiative power evolved

One point per satellite pass: the sum of the fire radiative power measured over the fire. This is the curve that says whether the fire eased off or picked up again, which no cumulative figure shows. The window covers 30 days; beyond that, clustering would merge two successive fires in the same place.

Fire dynamics

Loading history…

Satellite passes in detail

Pass	Power	Detections	Sensor
19 August at 17:38	24 MW	2	Met12
19 August at 17:28	22 MW	1	Met12
19 August at 17:18	39 MW	2	Met12
19 August at 17:08	11 MW	1	Met12
19 August at 16:59	31 MW	3	Aqua
19 August at 16:58	26 MW	2	Met12
19 August at 16:48	37 MW	2	Met12
19 August at 16:41	57 MW	1	Met10
19 August at 16:38	87 MW	3	Met12
19 August at 16:28	170 MW	2	Met12
19 August at 16:26	119 MW	1	Met10
19 August at 16:18	123 MW	4	Met12
19 August at 16:08	57 MW	2	Met12
19 August at 15:58	42 MW	2	Met12
19 August at 15:48	43 MW	4	N
19 August at 15:48	26 MW	1	Met12
19 August at 15:38	20 MW	1	Met12
19 August at 15:28	15 MW	1	Met12
19 August at 15:18	15 MW	1	Met12
19 August at 15:12	67 MW	4	N21
19 August at 15:08	47 MW	3	Met12
19 August at 14:58	45 MW	2	Met12

Follow live

The map shows active fires in 3D, with smoke plumes, forecast wind, drop zones and the live position of the Canadair, Dash 8 and Air Tractor aircraft of the French Sécurité civile.

Open the fire map

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