Are there any wildfires in Ariège right now?

The “Right now” block at the top of this page counts the satellite detections that fell inside Ariège over the last 24 hours, and gives the time of the most recent one. It refreshes about every ten minutes, the rate at which NASA republishes its files. Zero detections means nothing was seen, not that nothing is burning.

How do we know there is a fire in a given place?

We do not know it, we infer it. Polar-orbiting satellites measure infrared radiation from the ground and flag every abnormally hot pixel. A VIIRS pixel is about 375 metres across, a MODIS pixel a kilometre. A detection therefore says “something very hot in this square, at this minute” — not “a forest fire started here”.

When is the fire season in Ariège?

Across the five archive years, the busiest month in Ariège is February. The “The season” curve below gives the full distribution. Note that a winter or spring peak usually means agricultural or pastoral burning rather than forest fire.

What was the worst year in Ariège?

2022, with more satellite detections than any other year in the archive. This ranks by how many hot pixels were seen, not by burned area or damage: a cloudy year can be understated, and one large well-observed fire weighs heavily.

Can the water-bombing aircraft and helicopters be seen?

Yes, when they transmit ADS-B and a receiver hears them. The map draws their tracks, and the catalog lists verified aircraft country by country. A missing track proves nothing: radio coverage, a transponder switched off, an aircraft not in the catalog — three ordinary reasons not to see an aircraft that is flying.

Can this map replace an official alert?

No. Fire Maps shows observations and models, with their timestamps and their limits; it replaces neither the authorities, nor official alerts, nor incident command. In immediate danger, call the emergency services and follow official instructions.

Occitanie

Ariège, France

Fires in Ariège

Is there a fire in Ariège today? Satellite detections from the last 24 hours, plus five years of NASA FIRMS archive: 510 detections, season, worst year and the largest recorded fires.

Simple mapLive fires in Ariège Advanced mapPropagation scenario

Fires burning now in Ariège

Reading the latest satellite pass…

Window: last 24 hours, NASA FIRMS

See it on the map

The official vigilance in Ariège

The level published by Météo-France in “Météo des Forêts”. This is the authoritative source, and the one the prefecture acts on — not a calculation of ours.

Reading the official bulletin…

The level covers the whole department: it does not say where something is burning, it says under what conditions a fire would start. It never replaces a prefectoral order or an instruction from the emergency services.

See the vigilance on the map

Five years of archive

2020 to 2026 · through 2026-07-31

The years up to 2024 come from NASA’s finalized yearly archives. What follows, through 2026-07-31, comes from its near-real-time interface: 2026 is therefore a partial year, and its most recent weeks have not yet received the classification that removes volcanoes, flares and industrial sources. A very recent fire counts here, with a little more noise around it.

Satellite detections: 510
Distinct fires: 195
Busiest month: February
Worst year: 2022
Strongest signal: 149 MW
Seen at night: 17.1%
Detections per 1,000 km²: 104.1

Detections per year

Detections per year
Year	Detections
2020	73
2021	68
2022	109
2023	86
2024	39
2025	67
2026	68

The season

Share of detections by month, over the five years together.

The season
Month	Detections
Jan	44
Feb	187
Mar	109
Apr	57
May	2
Jun	2
Jul	39
Aug	22
Sep	3
Oct	20
Nov	11
Dec	14

The largest recorded fires

The largest fires recorded here over five years — when each was first seen from orbit, and where.

Feb 20, 2020 to Feb 25, 2020
near Rabat-les-Trois-Seigneurs, 2.4 km away
First seen at 42.862, 1.480
Open the map here
23 detections · 2.6 km across · 36 MW
Feb 19, 2021 to Feb 26, 2021
near Lacourt, 1.7 km away
First seen at 42.940, 1.175
Open the map here
15 detections · 6.3 km across · 22 MW
Jan 25, 2022 to Jan 30, 2022
near Cazenave-Serres-et-Allens, 0.5 km away
First seen at 42.842, 1.684
Open the map here
14 detections · 6.9 km across · 21 MW
Feb 13, 2023 to Feb 17, 2023
near Moulis, 1.4 km away
First seen at 42.938, 1.114
Open the map here
14 detections · 5.6 km across · 28 MW
Jul 15, 2022 to Jul 18, 2022
near Tignac, 0.2 km away
First seen at 42.749, 1.797
Open the map here
10 detections · 2.9 km across · 7 MW

A first detection is not an ignition. A polar satellite passes only a few times a day, so a fire is seen on the next overpass — sometimes hours after it started, in a pixel about 375 m across. The point given is where it was first seen, not where it began. The span is the straight-line distance between detections: a floor on how far the fire reached, never a burned area. The named municipality is the one nearest the centre of the detections.

Elsewhere in Occitanie

Area	Detections	Fires	Season
Pyrénées-Orientales	1,119	426	July
Gard	969	537	March
Hérault	922	463	July
Lozère	906	339	March
Aude	900	309	August
Hautes-Pyrénées	780	261	February
Aveyron	403	197	March
Haute-Garonne	294	183	April

The questions people ask

Are there any wildfires in Ariège right now?: The “Right now” block at the top of this page counts the satellite detections that fell inside Ariège over the last 24 hours, and gives the time of the most recent one. It refreshes about every ten minutes, the rate at which NASA republishes its files. Zero detections means nothing was seen, not that nothing is burning.
How do we know there is a fire in a given place?: We do not know it, we infer it. Polar-orbiting satellites measure infrared radiation from the ground and flag every abnormally hot pixel. A VIIRS pixel is about 375 metres across, a MODIS pixel a kilometre. A detection therefore says “something very hot in this square, at this minute” — not “a forest fire started here”.
When is the fire season in Ariège?: Across the five archive years, the busiest month in Ariège is February. The “The season” curve below gives the full distribution. Note that a winter or spring peak usually means agricultural or pastoral burning rather than forest fire.
What was the worst year in Ariège?: 2022, with more satellite detections than any other year in the archive. This ranks by how many hot pixels were seen, not by burned area or damage: a cloudy year can be understated, and one large well-observed fire weighs heavily.
Can the water-bombing aircraft and helicopters be seen?: Yes, when they transmit ADS-B and a receiver hears them. The map draws their tracks, and the catalog lists verified aircraft country by country. A missing track proves nothing: radio coverage, a transponder switched off, an aircraft not in the catalog — three ordinary reasons not to see an aircraft that is flying.
Can this map replace an official alert?: No. Fire Maps shows observations and models, with their timestamps and their limits; it replaces neither the authorities, nor official alerts, nor incident command. In immediate danger, call the emergency services and follow official instructions.

How to read this page

A detection is not a fire. It is a pixel the satellite saw radiating like fire. One fire lights several pixels and comes back on every overpass: the unit counted here is evidence of heat, not the incident. That is why the page also gives a count of distinct fires, obtained by chaining detections that are close in space and in time.

The archive has gaps, and they are not random. A polar satellite passes a few times a day; under cloud it sees nothing; a fire smaller than the pixel can go unnoticed; a fire smouldering under canopy radiates little. An area with no detection is an area where nothing was seen — which is not the same as an area where nothing burned.

Two filters were applied, and this is what they removed. First NASA's own classification: 38,727 rows flagged as volcano, fixed ground source or offshore flare were discarded. Then persistence: 250 cells of about 500 metres lit in six different months across at least three distinct years behave like an industrial installation rather than a season; their 4,992 detections were removed.

Not everything that burns is a wildfire. Stubble burning, pastoral burning and the disposal of agricultural residue all produce perfectly real detections, often outside the summer season. A February or March peak on this page is almost always that.

The administrative outlines are generalized to a few hundred metres. A detection falling right on a boundary may therefore be counted on the neighbouring side. For a count of hot pixels the difference is immaterial; for a question of jurisdiction, use the official source.