How long did the Cayo fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 April 2020 and 29 April 2020: 23 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 9,170 hectares (91.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Cayo (8,149 ha, 1.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, class Very high.

Where does this data come from?

From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Belize (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

BZ · Belize · 2020-04-07 → 2020-04-29

Cayo fire, 7 April 2020 Cayo

Out · last detection 29 Apr 2020, 07:04 UTC

The fire started on 7 April 2020 in Cayo, Belize, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,170 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

The largest in Belize in 2020, of 5.

Burnt area: 9,170ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 23days; 7 Apr 2020 – 29 Apr 2020
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 7 Apr; 2020
Heat detections: 482; in a single hotspot: 125 MW
Danger at start: 23; High · FWI index
Energy released: 2.5GW; sum of detected power

Play back 29 Apr 2020

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Apr29 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

7891011121314151617181920212223242526272829

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

The weather it burned in

39°high

46km/h · peak gust

25%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 6 May.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

Cayo 99,105 inhabitants where it started

8,149 ha reached on 4 Apr

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)
2 Apr	34.7 °C	34 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
3 Apr	34.7 °C	35 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
4 Apr	33.4 °C	43 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
5 Apr	34.4 °C	39 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
6 Apr	33.3 °C	45 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
7 Apr	32.8 °C	47 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
8 Apr	34.7 °C	37 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
9 Apr	35.8 °C	36 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
10 Apr	36.5 °C	35 %	41 km/h	0.2 mm	High 28
11 Apr	36.0 °C	34 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
12 Apr	38.1 °C	26 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
13 Apr	38.9 °C	26 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
14 Apr	35.7 °C	39 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
15 Apr	35.2 °C	34 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
16 Apr	33.7 °C	43 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
17 Apr	34.0 °C	31 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
18 Apr	34.1 °C	44 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
19 Apr	36.4 °C	35 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
20 Apr	38.5 °C	28 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
21 Apr	36.4 °C	36 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
22 Apr	34.4 °C	40 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
23 Apr	37.3 °C	33 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
24 Apr	38.9 °C	28 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
25 Apr	37.8 °C	25 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
26 Apr	35.1 °C	35 %	46 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 41
27 Apr	33.4 °C	35 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
28 Apr	33.0 °C	36 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
29 Apr	32.6 °C	53 %	35 km/h	1.7 mm	Moderate 14
30 Apr after	34.3 °C	37 %	38 km/h	0.6 mm	High 27
1 May after	32.2 °C	45 %	37 km/h	0.3 mm	High 26
2 May after	32.6 °C	46 %	42 km/h	0.2 mm	High 28
3 May after	31.9 °C	49 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
4 May after	33.5 °C	41 %	40 km/h	0.1 mm	High 29
5 May after	33.0 °C	47 %	42 km/h	0.1 mm	High 29
6 May after	32.6 °C	54 %	40 km/h	1.5 mm	Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 31 Mar 2020

After · 6 May 2020

Before After

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 482Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Belize ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Cayo fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 April 2020 and 29 April 2020: 23 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 9,170 hectares (91.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Cayo (8,149 ha, 1.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?: From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Belize (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

NEMO ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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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 ADM1 (Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic). 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.

Where it burned