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Guaimaca fire, 3 April 2023 Guaimaca, Cedros, Talanga

Out · last detection 27 Apr 2023, 07:13 UTC

The fire started on 3 April 2023 in Guaimaca, Honduras, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,045 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 8th largest in Francisco Morazán since 2016 (of 177 with a page). Number 3 in Honduras in 2023, of 149.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Guaimaca · 2019Guaimaca · 2018Talanga · 2018Guaimaca · 2017

Burnt area
6,045ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
24days
3 Apr 2023 – 26 Apr 2023
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
3 Apr
2023
Heat detections
246
in a single hotspot: 102 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Average daily power
78MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Apr26 Apr
27 Apr 2023

How it evolved, day by day

3 Apr 2023 · 29 MW · 4 4 Apr 2023 · 43 MW · 4 5 Apr 2023 · 58 MW · 8 6 Apr 2023 · 16 MW · 4 7 Apr 2023 · 33 MW · 6 8 Apr 2023 · 8 MW · 2 10 Apr 2023 · 47 MW · 6 12 Apr 2023 · 52 MW · 8 13 Apr 2023 · 4 MW · 3 14 Apr 2023 · 218 MW · 23 15 Apr 2023 · 380 MW · 54 16 Apr 2023 · 491 MW · 91 17 Apr 2023 · 26 MW · 13 18 Apr 2023 · 49 MW · 5 19 Apr 2023 · 15 MW · 2 22 Apr 2023 · 24 MW · 2 24 Apr 2023 · 1 MW · 1 25 Apr 2023 · 56 MW · 4 26 Apr 2023 · 5 MW · 4 27 Apr 2023 · 2 MW · 2
3 Apr 6 Apr 10 Apr 14 Apr 16 Apr 17 Apr 22 Apr 26 Apr

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
41km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.8 mm on 30 Apr.

This area had burned before

73% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 673 ha in 2017, 2,272 ha in 2018, 2,272 ha in 2019, 522 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,442 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.8% of the area of London (60 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Guaimaca where it started
    4,477 ha reached on 5 Apr
    5.7 %
  2. Cedros
    1,173 ha reached on 3 Apr
    1.5 %
  3. Talanga
    431 ha reached on 16 Apr
    1.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area0.59 ha
Residents≈ 40

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.59 hectares of built-up land and about 40 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
3 Apr 30.8 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
4 Apr 30.8 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
5 Apr 31.9 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Apr 31.1 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
7 Apr 31.8 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
8 Apr 31.3 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
9 Apr 30.6 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.7 mm High 26
10 Apr 31.5 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
11 Apr 32.0 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Apr 32.9 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Apr 31.6 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Apr 31.8 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Apr 33.7 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 Apr 34.0 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Apr 32.0 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Apr 31.7 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 Apr 32.7 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.2 mm High 37
20 Apr 32.5 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Apr 34.0 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Apr 36.0 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 39
23 Apr 33.2 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Apr 33.1 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.3 mm High 35
25 Apr 35.1 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 39
26 Apr 33.9 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 38
27 Apr after 33.5 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
28 Apr after 34.7 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
29 Apr after 34.1 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 38
30 Apr after 32.6 °C 31 % 30 km/h 6.8 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Mar 2023
After · 3 May 2023

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 22 April 2023 the air beside the fire reached 49 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 28: 1.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak49 µg/m³
Days over the guideline10 days
PM1071 µg/m³
Optical depth1.19
12345678910111213141516171819202122
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 · 246Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 3 April 2023 to 26 April 2023 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 April 2023 to 19 April 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,045 hectares (60.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Guaimaca (4,477 ha, 5.7 %); Cedros (1,173 ha, 1.5 %); Talanga (431 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 3 April 2023 to 19 April 2023. 246 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.