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Gualaco fire, 31 March 2020 Gualaco

Out · last detection 9 May 2020, 07:17 UTC

The fire started on 31 March 2020 in Gualaco, Honduras, and satellites saw it burning for 40 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 19,730 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2th largest in Olancho since 2016 (of 227 with a page). Number 4 in Honduras in 2020, of 174.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Gualaco · 2019Gualaco · 2019Gualaco · 2019Gualaco · 2023

Burnt area
19,730ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
40days
31 Mar 2020 – 9 May 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
31 Mar
2020
Heat detections
1,165
in a single hotspot: 102 MW
Danger at start
20
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
189MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Mar9 May
9 May 2020

How it evolved, day by day

31 Mar 2020 · 30 MW · 6 1 Apr 2020 · 41 MW · 4 2 Apr 2020 · 4 MW · 2 4 Apr 2020 · 360 MW · 8 5 Apr 2020 · 37 MW · 8 6 Apr 2020 · 82 MW · 9 7 Apr 2020 · 31 MW · 4 8 Apr 2020 · 179 MW · 17 9 Apr 2020 · 210 MW · 20 10 Apr 2020 · 457 MW · 47 11 Apr 2020 · 422 MW · 79 12 Apr 2020 · 465 MW · 85 13 Apr 2020 · 120 MW · 39 14 Apr 2020 · 354 MW · 84 15 Apr 2020 · 273 MW · 43 16 Apr 2020 · 614 MW · 85 17 Apr 2020 · 262 MW · 76 18 Apr 2020 · 96 MW · 58 19 Apr 2020 · 353 MW · 39 20 Apr 2020 · 461 MW · 44 21 Apr 2020 · 99 MW · 27 22 Apr 2020 · 6 MW · 2 23 Apr 2020 · 139 MW · 37 24 Apr 2020 · 206 MW · 45 25 Apr 2020 · 112 MW · 22 26 Apr 2020 · 321 MW · 66 27 Apr 2020 · 384 MW · 56 28 Apr 2020 · 240 MW · 33 29 Apr 2020 · 202 MW · 31 30 Apr 2020 · 53 MW · 23 1 May 2020 · 197 MW · 16 2 May 2020 · 69 MW · 8 3 May 2020 · 72 MW · 25 4 May 2020 · 13 MW · 9 5 May 2020 · 4 MW · 2 7 May 2020 · 22 MW · 5 9 May 2020 · 2 MW · 1
31 Mar 7 Apr 13 Apr 16 Apr 19 Apr 25 Apr 1 May 9 May

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
48km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 14.5 mm on 10 May.

This area had burned before

7% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,327 ha in 2019.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 12% of the area of London (197 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. Gualaco where it started
    19,845 ha reached on 31 Mar
    8.9 %

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 2020
Built-up area2.0 ha
Residents≈ 300

Inside the perimeter there were about 2.0 hectares of built-up land and about 300 residents (GHSL 2020, 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.

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)
31 Mar 30.6 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
1 Apr 29.3 °C 36 % 39 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 17
2 Apr 29.9 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
3 Apr 31.0 °C 33 % 39 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
4 Apr 30.6 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
5 Apr 31.1 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
6 Apr 31.1 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
7 Apr 31.0 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
8 Apr 31.3 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
9 Apr 31.4 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
10 Apr 32.8 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
11 Apr 31.2 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
12 Apr 30.5 °C 28 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
13 Apr 32.1 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Apr 31.4 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Apr 31.1 °C 30 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
16 Apr 30.9 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Apr 30.0 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Apr 31.1 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
19 Apr 30.9 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Apr 32.6 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Apr 30.9 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Apr 30.8 °C 34 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
23 Apr 31.2 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Apr 32.7 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 Apr 31.2 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
26 Apr 30.9 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Apr 30.9 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.4 mm High 34
28 Apr 28.8 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
29 Apr 29.9 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
30 Apr 28.9 °C 44 % 33 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 18
1 May 27.1 °C 44 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm High 23
2 May 28.1 °C 39 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
3 May 28.5 °C 40 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
4 May 29.2 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
5 May 29.6 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
6 May 29.3 °C 44 % 33 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 21
7 May 28.8 °C 39 % 35 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 19
8 May 27.2 °C 47 % 34 km/h 3.1 mm Low 6
9 May 29.3 °C 41 % 33 km/h 1.5 mm Low 10
10 May after 28.5 °C 51 % 30 km/h 14.5 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Mar 2020
After · 16 May 2020

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 · 1,165Every 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 Gualaco fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 31 March 2020 to 9 May 2020 (40 days). The perimeter dates it from 6 April 2020 to 2 May 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 19,730 hectares (197.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Gualaco (19,845 ha, 8.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.8 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 2 May 2020 → 9 May 2020.
  2. Start date: 6 April 2020 → 31 March 2020.

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; 6 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 6 April 2020 to 2 May 2020. 1,165 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 2020, 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.