Piton de la Fournaise began a new eruption on January 18, 2026 at 7:48 PM local time (3:48 PM UTC). The eruptive site is located on the northern flank of the terminal cone, inside the Enclos Fouqué. Four eruptive fissures opened successively between 7:45 PM and 8:54 PM.
The ICube-SERTIT team produced a Sentinel-1 interferogram (C-band radar satellite from the European Space Agency) from images acquired on January 10 and 22, 2026. The interferogram reveals ground displacements along the satellite’s line of sight in the eruptive zone with millimetric precision. These line-of-sight displacements combine vertical and horizontal ground movements along the satellite’s oblique observation axis. The interferometric signal, characterized by concentric fringes, reflects the deformation of the northern flank associated with volcanic activity.
