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Catacamas fire, 22 April 2026 Catacamas, San Francisco de Becerra, Patuca

Out · last detection 29 Apr 2026, 07:51 UTC

The fire started on 22 April 2026 in Catacamas, Honduras, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,053 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the 56th largest in Olancho since 2016 (of 227 with a page). Number 20 in Honduras in 2026, of 99.

The power measured by the satellite is low (10.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Catacamas · 2018Catacamas · 2020Catacamas · 2022Catacamas · 2016

Burnt area
2,053ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
22 Apr 2026 – 29 Apr 2026
Municipalities hit
4
municipalities
Started on
22 Apr
2026
Heat detections
42
in a single hotspot: 11 MW
Danger at start
18
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
42MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Apr29 Apr
29 Apr 2026

How it evolved, day by day

24 Apr 2026 · 28 MW · 3 25 Apr 2026 · 7 MW · 1 27 Apr 2026 · 9 MW · 1 28 Apr 2026 · 163 MW · 33 29 Apr 2026 · 5 MW · 2
24 Apr 25 Apr 27 Apr 28 Apr 29 Apr

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
41km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,627 ha in 2018, 1,381 ha in 2020, 742 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,876 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.3% of the area of London (21 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Catacamas where it started
    1,899 ha reached on 24 Apr
    0.3 %
  2. San Francisco de Becerra
    156 ha reached on 21 Apr
    0.5 %
  3. Patuca
    10 ha
    0.0 %
  4. Juticalpa
    0 ha
    0.0 %

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)
21 Apr 31.4 °C 46 % 41 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 18
22 Apr 33.1 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
23 Apr 32.9 °C 40 % 26 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 20
24 Apr 35.9 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
25 Apr 35.3 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
26 Apr 36.9 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
27 Apr 36.4 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.4 mm High 32
28 Apr 34.3 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
29 Apr 33.8 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.4 mm High 34
30 Apr after 33.4 °C 43 % 40 km/h 0.3 mm High 28
1 May after 33.5 °C 44 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
2 May after 35.8 °C 38 % 33 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
3 May after 36.5 °C 35 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
4 May after 36.0 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 May after 35.1 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 May after 35.0 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
7 May after 35.7 °C 38 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
8 May after 35.3 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 May after 34.2 °C 41 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Apr 2026
After · 6 May 2026

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 26 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 46 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 38: 2.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak46 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1047 µg/m³
Optical depth0.71
19202122232425262728293012
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 · 42Every 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 Honduras ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Catacamas fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 April 2026 and 29 April 2026: 8 days 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 2,053 hectares (20.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Catacamas (1,899 ha, 0.3 %); San Francisco de Becerra (156 ha, 0.5 %); Patuca (10 ha, 0.0 %); Juticalpa (0 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Honduras (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: 911

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 911.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 42 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)). 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.