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Gualaco fire, 29 March 2023 Gualaco

Out · last detection 19 Apr 2023, 19:12 UTC

The fire started on 29 March 2023 in Gualaco, Honduras, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,925 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 17th largest in Olancho since 2016 (of 227 with a page). Number 4 in Honduras in 2023, of 149.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Gualaco · 2019Gualaco · 2020Gualaco · 2023San Esteban · 2026

Burnt area
4,925ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
22days
29 Mar 2023 – 19 Apr 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
29 Mar
2023
Heat detections
196
in a single hotspot: 57 MW
Danger at start
19
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
58MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Mar19 Apr
19 Apr 2023

How it evolved, day by day

29 Mar 2023 · 17 MW · 4 1 Apr 2023 · 2 MW · 2 2 Apr 2023 · 21 MW · 7 3 Apr 2023 · 17 MW · 2 4 Apr 2023 · 11 MW · 2 5 Apr 2023 · 89 MW · 10 6 Apr 2023 · 33 MW · 9 7 Apr 2023 · 159 MW · 34 8 Apr 2023 · 288 MW · 20 9 Apr 2023 · 33 MW · 6 10 Apr 2023 · 7 MW · 6 11 Apr 2023 · 5 MW · 2 12 Apr 2023 · 40 MW · 11 13 Apr 2023 · 127 MW · 26 14 Apr 2023 · 75 MW · 12 15 Apr 2023 · 122 MW · 29 16 Apr 2023 · 1 MW · 2 17 Apr 2023 · 10 MW · 2 18 Apr 2023 · 40 MW · 5 19 Apr 2023 · 52 MW · 5
29 Mar 3 Apr 6 Apr 8 Apr 9 Apr 12 Apr 15 Apr 18 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

33°high
46km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

51% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,270 ha in 2019, 254 ha in 2020.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.1% of the area of London (49 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
    4,951 ha reached on 29 Mar
    2.2 %

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 area0.71 ha
Residents≈ 80

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.71 hectares of built-up land and about 80 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)
2 Apr 29.9 °C 36 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
3 Apr 29.6 °C 40 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
4 Apr 29.7 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 19
5 Apr 29.6 °C 38 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
6 Apr 30.3 °C 38 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
7 Apr 30.2 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
8 Apr 29.4 °C 40 % 30 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 20
9 Apr 31.5 °C 31 % 40 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 19
10 Apr 29.5 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
11 Apr 31.3 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
12 Apr 32.6 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
13 Apr 31.3 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
14 Apr 29.6 °C 44 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
15 Apr 32.3 °C 36 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
16 Apr 32.4 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
17 Apr 31.7 °C 35 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
18 Apr 29.4 °C 45 % 34 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 16
19 Apr 30.6 °C 41 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
20 Apr after 31.2 °C 39 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
21 Apr after 33.4 °C 32 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
22 Apr after 34.9 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
23 Apr after 32.5 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
24 Apr after 33.1 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
25 Apr after 33.4 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
26 Apr after 32.6 °C 41 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
27 Apr after 32.7 °C 38 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
28 Apr after 32.6 °C 40 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
29 Apr after 33.5 °C 37 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Mar 2023
After · 26 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 17 April 2023 the air beside the fire reached 132 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 62: 4.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak132 µg/m³
Days over the guideline12 days
PM10189 µg/m³
Optical depth0.89
345678910111213141516171819202122
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 · 196Every 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 29 March 2023 to 19 April 2023 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 April 2023 to 19 April 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,925 hectares (49.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Gualaco (4,951 ha, 2.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.6 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, 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 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
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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.

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 5 April 2023 to 19 April 2023. 196 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.