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Cayo fire, 2 May 2024 Cayo

Out · last detection 14 May 2024, 18:40 UTC

The fire started on 2 May 2024 in Cayo, Belize, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,323 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

Number 3 in Belize in 2024, of 14.

Burnt area
4,323ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
2 May 2024 – 14 May 2024
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
2 May
2024
Heat detections
406
in a single hotspot: 59 MW
Danger at start
17
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
2.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 May 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 May14 May

How it evolved, day by day

234567891011121314

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
42km/h · peak gust
34%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

76% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,266 ha in 2020, 273 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,297 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cayo 99,105 inhabitants where it started
    4,268 ha reached on 1 May
    0.8 %

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)
1 May 34.5 °C 48 % 41 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 17
2 May 35.1 °C 40 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
3 May 34.4 °C 40 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
4 May 34.7 °C 42 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
5 May 35.7 °C 42 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
6 May 35.5 °C 44 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
7 May 35.6 °C 46 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
8 May 35.7 °C 47 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
9 May 37.1 °C 39 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
10 May 36.8 °C 40 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
11 May 34.8 °C 52 % 34 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 19
12 May 35.9 °C 46 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
13 May 37.4 °C 38 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 May 36.9 °C 43 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
15 May after 37.4 °C 39 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
16 May after 36.1 °C 43 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
17 May after 38.3 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm High 32
18 May after 38.1 °C 40 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 May after 33.6 °C 49 % 37 km/h 0.5 mm High 28
20 May after 34.7 °C 42 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
21 May after 34.9 °C 44 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 May after 35.3 °C 41 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
23 May after 35.1 °C 41 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 May after 36.7 °C 40 % 44 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
25 May after 35.8 °C 47 % 40 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
26 May after 36.3 °C 44 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
27 May after 35.9 °C 46 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
28 May after 35.2 °C 47 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Apr 2024
After · 21 May 2024

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 May 2024 the air beside the fire reached 72 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 34: 2.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak72 µg/m³
Days over the guideline10 days
PM10102 µg/m³
Optical depth1.56
301234567891011121314151617
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 · 406Every 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 Belize ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Cayo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 May 2024 and 14 May 2024: 13 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 4,323 hectares (43.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cayo (4,268 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 42 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 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

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.

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.