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Guaimaca fire, 10 May 2026 Guaimaca

Out · last detection 13 May 2026, 19:37 UTC

The fire started on 10 May 2026 in Guaimaca, Honduras, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,114 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 152th largest in Francisco Morazán since 2016 (of 177 with a page). Number 85 in Honduras in 2026, of 99.

The power measured by the satellite is low (18.1 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
1,114ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
10 May 2026 – 13 May 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
10 May
2026
Heat detections
19
in a single hotspot: 18 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
136MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 May 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 May13 May

How it evolved, day by day

111213

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
37km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

87% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 839 ha in 2018, 886 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 974 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Guaimaca where it started
    1,121 ha reached on 11 May
    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)
10 May 36.1 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 May 35.3 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 May 35.9 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
13 May 35.4 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.3 mm High 35
14 May after 35.5 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 May after 35.6 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
16 May after 34.5 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
17 May after 33.0 °C 40 % 42 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
18 May after 35.2 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 May after 34.5 °C 33 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 May after 34.6 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
21 May after 36.2 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 May after 36.2 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 May after 37.2 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 May 2026
After · 20 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 14 May 2026 the air beside the fire reached 54 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 27: 1.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak54 µg/m³
Days over the guideline7 days
PM1063 µg/m³
Optical depth0.58
8910111213141516
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 · 19Every 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 10 May 2026 and 13 May 2026: 4 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 1,114 hectares (11.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Guaimaca (1,121 ha, 1.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.1 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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
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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.