Fire atlas
Fires in Switzerland
Satellite-detected fires in Switzerland right now, plus five years of NASA FIRMS archive: 611 detections, 442 distinct fires, season and worst years by region.
Fires burning now in Switzerland
Reading the latest satellite pass…
Window: last 24 hours, NASA FIRMS
See it on the mapFive 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
- 611
- Distinct fires
- 442
- Busiest month
- July
- Worst year
- 2026
- Strongest signal
- 100 MW
- Seen at night
- 36.3%
- Detections per 1,000 km²
- 14.8
Detections per year
| Year | Detections |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 92 |
| 2021 | 67 |
| 2022 | 107 |
| 2023 | 75 |
| 2024 | 78 |
| 2025 | 77 |
| 2026 | 115 |
The season
Share of detections by month, over the five years together.
| Month | Detections |
|---|---|
| Jan | 34 |
| Feb | 10 |
| Mar | 66 |
| Apr | 77 |
| May | 61 |
| Jun | 96 |
| Jul | 103 |
| Aug | 81 |
| Sep | 66 |
| Oct | 16 |
| Nov | 0 |
| Dec | 1 |
The most affected areas
| Area | Detections |
|---|---|
| Région lémanique | 152 |
| Espace Mittelland | 141 |
| Ticino | 91 |
| Ostschweiz | 69 |
| Nordwestschweiz | 68 |
| Zentralschweiz | 57 |
Regions
| Area | Detections |
|---|---|
| Région lémanique | 152 |
| Espace Mittelland | 141 |
| Ticino | 91 |
| Ostschweiz | 69 |
| Nordwestschweiz | 68 |
| Zentralschweiz | 57 |
Without a page of their own
These areas stay below the publication floor: too few detections, or too few distinct fires over five years, for a page to say anything beyond this number.
| Area | Detections |
|---|---|
| Zürich | 33 |
The largest recorded fires
The largest fires recorded here over five years — when each was first seen from orbit, and where.
18 detections · 2.1 km across · 30 MW
17 detections · 1.9 km across · 35 MW
16 detections · 3.6 km across · 68 MW
13 detections · 0.6 km across · 6 MW
5 detections · 0.5 km across · 2 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.
Aerial response in Switzerland
4 verified aircraft in the catalog, tracked over ADS-B when they transmit.
See the Switzerland registerThe questions people ask
- Where are the wildfires in Switzerland today?
- The region table below shows, for each of them, the satellite detections from the last 24 hours. Open a region to go down to the province, or go straight to the map, which shows every detection point with its time and its power.
- Which regions of Switzerland burn the most?
- The ranking below answers directly: regions are sorted by satellite detections over five years, most affected first. Each row leads to a page detailing its season, its worst years and its largest fires.
- When is the fire season in Switzerland?
- Over five years, July is the month with the most detections in Switzerland. But a national average hides opposite regimes: the Mediterranean coast burns in summer, while some inland regions peak in late winter because of agricultural burning.
- 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: 2,425 rows flagged as volcano, fixed ground source or offshore flare were discarded. Then persistence: 23 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 408 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.
Data sources
Archive built on July 31, 2026, covering 2020 to 2026.