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Guaimaca fire, 22 March 2019 Guaimaca, Cedros, Talanga

Out · last detection 31 Mar 2019, 07:11 UTC

The fire started on 22 March 2019 in Guaimaca, Honduras, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,459 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 25th largest in Francisco Morazán since 2016 (of 177 with a page). Number 11 in Honduras in 2019, of 93.

Burnt area
3,459ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
22 Mar 2019 – 30 Mar 2019
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
22 Mar
2019
Heat detections
117
in a single hotspot: 64 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
810MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Mar 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Mar30 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

2223252627293031

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
46km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 59 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 3 Apr.

This area had burned before

36% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 552 ha in 2017, 691 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Guaimaca where it started
    1,936 ha reached on 22 Mar
    2.5 %
  2. Cedros
    1,037 ha reached on 26 Mar
    1.3 %
  3. Talanga
    507 ha reached on 29 Mar
    1.2 %

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)
22 Mar 29.1 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 Mar 30.4 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Mar 30.6 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 Mar 31.7 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Mar 31.5 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Mar 30.0 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Mar 29.7 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Mar 31.0 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Mar 32.3 °C 22 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
31 Mar after 32.6 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
1 Apr after 32.7 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
2 Apr after 32.3 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.6 mm High 34
3 Apr after 30.8 °C 33 % 44 km/h 1.0 mm High 28

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Mar 2019
After · 6 Apr 2019

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 · 117Every 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 Guaimaca fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 March 2019 and 30 March 2019: 9 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 3,459 hectares (34.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Guaimaca (1,936 ha, 2.5 %); Cedros (1,037 ha, 1.3 %); Talanga (507 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.3 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, class Very 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.