Skip to content
worldfires
HN · Honduras · →

Cedros fire, 1 April 2017 Cedros

Out · last detection 6 Apr 2017, 06:45 UTC

The fire started on 1 April 2017 in Cedros, Honduras, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,356 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 41th largest in Francisco Morazán since 2016 (of 177 with a page). Number 4 in Honduras in 2017, of 30.

Burnt area
2,356ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
1 Apr 2017 – 6 Apr 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
1 Apr
2017
Heat detections
111
in a single hotspot: 41 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
663MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Apr 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Apr6 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

123456

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
39km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 11 Apr.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Cedros where it started
    2,370 ha reached on 1 Apr
    3.0 %

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)
1 Apr 34.5 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Apr 34.0 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
3 Apr 34.6 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.7 mm High 26
4 Apr 32.7 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
5 Apr 34.6 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Apr 35.2 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Apr after 32.5 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.8 mm High 28
8 Apr after 30.7 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
9 Apr after 32.8 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
10 Apr after 32.6 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Apr after 29.6 °C 34 % 32 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 21

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Mar 2017
After · 13 Apr 2017

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 · 111Every 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 Cedros fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 April 2017 and 6 April 2017: 6 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 2,356 hectares (23.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cedros (2,370 ha, 3.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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.

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.