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Guaimaca fire, 12 April 2023 Guaimaca

Out · last detection 16 Apr 2023, 18:28 UTC

The fire started on 12 April 2023 in Guaimaca, Honduras, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,108 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 153th largest in Francisco Morazán since 2016 (of 177 with a page). Number 119 in Honduras in 2023, of 149.

The power measured by the satellite is low (24.6 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
1,108ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
12 Apr 2023 – 16 Apr 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
12 Apr
2023
Heat detections
41
in a single hotspot: 25 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
286MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Apr 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Apr16 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

12141516

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
38km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 33 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Guaimaca where it started
    1,114 ha reached on 12 Apr
    1.4 %

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)
12 Apr 34.0 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Apr 32.7 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Apr 32.9 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Apr 34.8 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 Apr 35.1 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Apr after 33.1 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Apr after 32.8 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 Apr after 33.8 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.2 mm High 38
20 Apr after 33.6 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Apr after 35.1 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Apr after 37.1 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 40
23 Apr after 34.3 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Apr after 34.2 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.3 mm High 36
25 Apr after 36.2 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 39
26 Apr after 35.0 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Apr 2023
After · 23 Apr 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 18 April 2023 the air beside the fire reached 45 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 28: 1.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak45 µg/m³
Days over the guideline7 days
PM1064 µg/m³
Optical depth1.19
10111213141516171819
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 · 41Every 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 12 April 2023 and 16 April 2023: 5 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 1,108 hectares (11.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Guaimaca (1,114 ha, 1.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.1 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 38 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.