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Céspedes fire, April 2023 Céspedes, Florida

Out · last detection 2 Apr 2023, 17:52 UTC

The fire started on 2 April 2023 in Céspedes, Cuba, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,292 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 35th largest in Camagüey since 2016 (of 63 with a page). Number 25 in Cuba in 2023, of 46.

Burnt area
1,292ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
1day
2 Apr 2023 – 2 Apr 2023
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
2 Apr
2023
Heat detections
18
in a single hotspot: 86 MW
Danger at start
20
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
390MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Apr2 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

2

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
41km/h · peak gust
40%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.4 mm on 10 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. Céspedes where it started
    1,115 ha reached on 2 Apr
    1.6 %
  2. Florida
    183 ha reached on 2 Apr
    0.1 %

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)
2 Apr 32.9 °C 40 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 20
3 Apr after 32.0 °C 42 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
4 Apr after 32.0 °C 43 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
5 Apr after 31.9 °C 43 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
6 Apr after 31.6 °C 44 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
7 Apr after 30.2 °C 45 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
8 Apr after 31.0 °C 47 % 30 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 17
9 Apr after 32.4 °C 41 % 24 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 18
10 Apr after 31.8 °C 44 % 29 km/h 5.4 mm Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Mar 2023
After · 9 Apr 2023

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 4 April 2023 the air beside the fire reached 15 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak15 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1023 µg/m³
Optical depth0.32
3112345
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 · 18Every 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 Cuba ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Céspedes fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 April 2023 and 2 April 2023: 1 day 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 1,292 hectares (12.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Céspedes (1,115 ha, 1.6 %); Florida (183 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.9 °C, humidity dropped to 40 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, class Moderate.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Cuba (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: 105

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 105.

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 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). 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.