David fire, March 2019 David
The fire started on 27 March 2019 in David, Panama, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,044 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
Number 14 in Panama in 2019, of 14.
The power measured by the satellite is low (29.9 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
- 1,044ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 3days
- 27 Mar 2019 – 29 Mar 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 27 Mar
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 33
- in a single hotspot: 30 MW
- Danger at start
- 26
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 330MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 6 Apr.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
1,051 ha reached on 27 Mar1.2 %
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 Mar | 32.2 °C | 47 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 28 Mar | 32.6 °C | 41 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 29 Mar | 32.9 °C | 48 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 30 Mar after | 32.6 °C | 53 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 31 Mar after | 33.8 °C | 44 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 1 Apr after | 34.4 °C | 45 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 2 Apr after | 33.0 °C | 50 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 3 Apr after | 32.4 °C | 44 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 4 Apr after | 32.0 °C | 47 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 5 Apr after | 31.7 °C | 48 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 6 Apr after | 32.6 °C | 50 % | 28 km/h | 1.2 mm | Moderate 13 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 33Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,364 haBesikó14 April 2026 · 8 days · 30 km away
- 1,370 haSan Lorenzo20 March 2020 · 4 days · 34 km away
- 1,060 haSan Lorenzo15 March 2020 · 6 days · 35 km away
- 1,026 haSan LorenzoMarch 2026 · 4 days · 35 km away
- 1,003 haSan LorenzoMarch 2016 · 3 days · 35 km away
- 1,832 haBesikó16 April 2026 · 9 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the David fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 March 2019 and 29 March 2019: 3 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 1,044 hectares (10.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered David (1,051 ha, 1.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.9 °C, humidity dropped to 41 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, class High.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Panama (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 · 103
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
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.