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Cedros fire, February 2019 Cedros

Out · last detection 6 Mar 2019, 19:28 UTC

The fire started on 27 February 2019 in Cedros, Honduras, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,144 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 148th largest in Francisco Morazán since 2016 (of 177 with a page). Number 71 in Honduras in 2019, of 93.

The power measured by the satellite is low (18.2 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
1,144ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
27 Feb 2019 – 6 Mar 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
27 Feb
2019
Heat detections
32
in a single hotspot: 18 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index
Energy released
108MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Mar 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Feb6 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

272812346

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
58km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,103 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Cedros where it started
    1,151 ha reached on 27 Feb
    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)
27 Feb 27.1 °C 36 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
28 Feb 28.1 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
1 Mar 30.5 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
2 Mar 28.8 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
3 Mar 31.5 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.5 mm High 27
4 Mar 31.9 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
5 Mar 31.9 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Mar 30.1 °C 30 % 58 km/h 0.3 mm High 37
7 Mar after 30.6 °C 29 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Mar after 29.3 °C 34 % 43 km/h 0.3 mm High 31
9 Mar after 29.6 °C 32 % 41 km/h 0.5 mm High 31
10 Mar after 29.9 °C 32 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Mar after 27.5 °C 42 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
12 Mar after 28.8 °C 37 % 43 km/h 0.3 mm High 28
13 Mar after 30.1 °C 32 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
14 Mar after 31.5 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Mar after 31.5 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
16 Mar after 31.5 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Feb 2019
After · 13 Mar 2019

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 · 32Every 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 27 February 2019 and 6 March 2019: 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 1,144 hectares (11.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cedros (1,151 ha, 1.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.9 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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.