Skip to content
worldfires
CU · Cuba · →

Cacocum fire, January 2023 Cacocum

Out · last detection 13 Jan 2023, 19:13 UTC

The fire started on 13 January 2023 in Cacocum, Cuba, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,003 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 30th largest in Holguín since 2016 (of 30 with a page). Number 46 in Cuba in 2023, of 46.

Burnt area
1,003ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
1day
13 Jan 2023 – 13 Jan 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
13 Jan
2023
Heat detections
26
in a single hotspot: 100 MW
Danger at start
14
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
798MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Jan13 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

13

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
34km/h · peak gust
46%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Cacocum where it started
    1,008 ha reached on 13 Jan
    1.5 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

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)
13 Jan 31.0 °C 46 % 34 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 14
14 Jan after 27.7 °C 50 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
15 Jan after 24.9 °C 40 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
16 Jan after 26.4 °C 38 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
17 Jan after 28.7 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
18 Jan after 29.6 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
19 Jan after 30.3 °C 39 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
20 Jan after 30.5 °C 38 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
21 Jan after 30.9 °C 40 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
22 Jan after 31.8 °C 39 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
23 Jan after 32.1 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 22

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Jan 2023
After · 20 Jan 2023

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 16 January 2023 the air beside the fire reached 11 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak11 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1019 µg/m³
Optical depth0.24
111213141516
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 · 26Every 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 Cuba ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Cacocum fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 January 2023 and 13 January 2023: 1 day between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,003 hectares (10.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cacocum (1,008 ha, 1.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.0 °C, humidity dropped to 46 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 14, class Moderate.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Cuba (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

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: 105

Satellite cross-check

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 105.

Where this data comes from

The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. 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 ADM2 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.