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Danlí fire, 14 April 2020 Danlí

Out · last detection 20 Apr 2020, 19:22 UTC

The fire started on 14 April 2020 in Danlí, Honduras, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,844 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 28th largest in El Paraíso since 2016 (of 63 with a page). Number 77 in Honduras in 2020, of 174.

The power measured by the satellite is low (22.2 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
1,844ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
14 Apr 2020 – 19 Apr 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
14 Apr
2020
Heat detections
61
in a single hotspot: 22 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
230MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Apr 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Apr19 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

14151617181920

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
45km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 22 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

62% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,152 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Danlí where it started
    1,856 ha reached on 13 Apr
    0.7 %

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)
14 Apr 34.9 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Apr 35.4 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 Apr 34.5 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
17 Apr 33.0 °C 35 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Apr 34.2 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Apr 34.5 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Apr after 37.8 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
21 Apr after 36.9 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Apr after 35.6 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
23 Apr after 35.8 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Apr after 36.7 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Apr after 35.4 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Apr after 34.4 °C 35 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Apr after 34.5 °C 29 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
28 Apr after 31.8 °C 38 % 44 km/h 0.4 mm High 35
29 Apr after 34.0 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Apr 2020
After · 26 Apr 2020

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 · 61Every 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 14 April 2020 and 19 April 2020: 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 1,844 hectares (18.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Danlí (1,856 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.