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Danlí fire, 5 May 2026 Danlí

Out · last detection 16 May 2026, 18:41 UTC

The fire started on 5 May 2026 in Danlí, Honduras, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,030 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 22th largest in El Paraíso since 2016 (of 63 with a page). Number 21 in Honduras in 2026, of 99.

The power measured by the satellite is low (16.5 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
2,030ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
5 May 2026 – 16 May 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
5 May
2026
Heat detections
59
in a single hotspot: 17 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
175MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 May 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 May16 May

How it evolved, day by day

5679101112131516

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
42km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 23 May.

This area had burned before

51% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 970 ha in 2022, 113 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,028 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Danlí where it started
    2,043 ha reached on 5 May
    0.8 %

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 May 34.0 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 May 34.1 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 May 34.5 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
8 May 33.9 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
9 May 33.0 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 May 33.6 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 May 32.7 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
12 May 33.0 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
13 May 32.8 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 May 32.5 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 May 33.6 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 May 30.7 °C 45 % 42 km/h 0.4 mm High 30
17 May after 31.0 °C 47 % 43 km/h 0.6 mm High 24
18 May after 31.8 °C 40 % 44 km/h 0.3 mm High 28
19 May after 30.9 °C 46 % 45 km/h 0.3 mm High 28
20 May after 32.7 °C 34 % 43 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
21 May after 33.7 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
22 May after 34.1 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
23 May after 33.3 °C 41 % 41 km/h 2.1 mm Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Apr 2026
After · 23 May 2026

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 9 May 2026 the air beside the fire reached 53 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak53 µg/m³
Days over the guideline14 days
PM1057 µg/m³
Optical depth0.44
345678910111213141516171819
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 · 59Every 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 May 2026 and 16 May 2026: 12 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 2,030 hectares (20.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Danlí (2,043 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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.