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Cedros fire, 8 April 2018 Cedros

Out · last detection 13 Apr 2018, 18:19 UTC

The fire started on 8 April 2018 in Cedros, Honduras, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,613 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 73th largest in Francisco Morazán since 2016 (of 177 with a page). Number 27 in Honduras in 2018, of 73.

The power measured by the satellite is low (22.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
1,613ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
8 Apr 2018 – 14 Apr 2018
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
8 Apr
2018
Heat detections
47
in a single hotspot: 22 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
355MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Apr 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Apr14 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

8910111213

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
40km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 23 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 15 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
    1,623 ha reached on 8 Apr
    2.1 %

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)
8 Apr 33.8 °C 26 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
9 Apr 30.5 °C 45 % 31 km/h 3.8 mm Low 5
10 Apr 31.0 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
11 Apr 32.4 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Apr 31.7 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Apr 31.8 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Apr 33.7 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Apr after 30.9 °C 37 % 38 km/h 1.9 mm Moderate 14

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Apr 2018
After · 21 Apr 2018

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 · 47Every 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 8 April 2018 and 14 April 2018: 7 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 1,613 hectares (16.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cedros (1,623 ha, 2.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.8 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 40 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.

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.