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Danlí fire, 5 April 2016 Danlí

Out · last detection 18 Apr 2016, 07:06 UTC

The fire started on 5 April 2016 in Danlí, Honduras, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,027 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 8th largest in El Paraíso since 2016 (of 63 with a page). Number 4 in Honduras in 2016, of 51.

The power measured by the satellite is low (15.4 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
4,027ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
5 Apr 2016 – 18 Apr 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
5 Apr
2016
Heat detections
148
in a single hotspot: 15 MW
Danger at start
22
High · FWI index
Energy released
485MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Apr 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Apr18 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

56891011131415161718

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
53km/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: 18.1 mm on 26 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. Danlí where it started
    4,051 ha reached on 5 Apr
    1.6 %

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)
5 Apr 29.2 °C 40 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
6 Apr 30.4 °C 31 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
7 Apr 31.3 °C 29 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
8 Apr 31.7 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
9 Apr 31.4 °C 30 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
10 Apr 28.9 °C 35 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Apr 28.2 °C 44 % 45 km/h 0.2 mm High 25
12 Apr 30.9 °C 30 % 33 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 20
13 Apr 31.6 °C 33 % 32 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 19
14 Apr 31.8 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.2 mm High 26
15 Apr 32.7 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
16 Apr 32.5 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Apr 32.9 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Apr 31.0 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
19 Apr after 29.3 °C 38 % 36 km/h 0.4 mm High 29
20 Apr after 31.5 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.4 mm High 28
21 Apr after 32.9 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
22 Apr after 31.7 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
23 Apr after 34.0 °C 23 % 49 km/h 0.8 mm High 35
24 Apr after 32.1 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.3 mm High 33
25 Apr after 33.6 °C 34 % 33 km/h 0.7 mm High 26
26 Apr after 31.7 °C 36 % 28 km/h 18.1 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Mar 2016
After · 25 Apr 2016

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 · 148Every 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 Danlí fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 April 2016 and 18 April 2016: 14 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 4,027 hectares (40.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Danlí (4,051 ha, 1.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.0 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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
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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.