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Guata fire, 9 April 2023 Guata, Jano

Out · last detection 17 Apr 2023, 07:01 UTC

The fire started on 9 April 2023 in Guata, Honduras, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,074 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 197th largest in Olancho since 2016 (of 227 with a page). Number 133 in Honduras in 2023, of 149.

The power measured by the satellite is low (23.7 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
1,074ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
9 Apr 2023 – 17 Apr 2023
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
9 Apr
2023
Heat detections
41
in a single hotspot: 24 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
171MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Apr 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Apr17 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

9101214151617

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
43km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

63% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 135 ha in 2018, 569 ha in 2019, 6 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Guata where it started
    841 ha reached on 5 Apr
    1.2 %
  2. Jano
    240 ha reached on 12 Apr
    0.7 %

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)
9 Apr 30.7 °C 35 % 41 km/h 0.4 mm High 31
10 Apr 30.0 °C 36 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Apr 30.6 °C 34 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Apr 31.0 °C 36 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Apr 32.0 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
14 Apr 33.0 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
15 Apr 34.8 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
16 Apr 34.0 °C 31 % 33 km/h 0.6 mm High 28
17 Apr 31.7 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.2 mm High 32
18 Apr after 31.2 °C 37 % 39 km/h 0.7 mm High 25
19 Apr after 32.9 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
20 Apr after 33.0 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
21 Apr after 34.5 °C 33 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
22 Apr after 34.6 °C 32 % 41 km/h 0.3 mm High 32
23 Apr after 33.0 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.3 mm High 32
24 Apr after 34.4 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.3 mm High 32
25 Apr after 33.8 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
26 Apr after 34.1 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
27 Apr after 34.7 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Apr 2023
After · 24 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 145 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 76: 5.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak145 µg/m³
Days over the guideline13 days
PM10209 µg/m³
Optical depth1.23
7891011121314151617181920
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 Guata fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 April 2023 and 17 April 2023: 9 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 1,074 hectares (10.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Guata (841 ha, 1.2 %); Jano (240 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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.

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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.