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Jacaltenango fire, April 2019 Jacaltenango

Out · last detection 23 Apr 2019, 08:20 UTC

The fire started on 20 April 2019 in Jacaltenango, Guatemala, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,095 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 16th largest in Huehuetenango since 2016 (of 17 with a page). Number 19 in Guatemala in 2019, of 24.

The power measured by the satellite is low (11.1 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
1,095ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
20 Apr 2019 – 23 Apr 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
20 Apr
2019
Heat detections
46
in a single hotspot: 11 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Average daily power
43MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

23 Apr 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Apr23 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

20 Apr 2019 · 51 MW · 11 21 Apr 2019 · 80 MW · 22 22 Apr 2019 · 39 MW · 11 23 Apr 2019 · 2 MW · 2
20 Apr 21 Apr 22 Apr 23 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

32°high
46km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

41% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 448 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Jacaltenango where it started
    1,101 ha reached on 20 Apr
    6.7 %

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)
20 Apr 29.6 °C 34 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
21 Apr 31.7 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
22 Apr 32.4 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Apr 32.5 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Apr after 32.8 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
25 Apr after 32.0 °C 40 % 47 km/h 0.3 mm High 30
26 Apr after 31.0 °C 41 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Apr after 30.0 °C 41 % 39 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 20
28 Apr after 32.3 °C 38 % 44 km/h 0.1 mm High 25
29 Apr after 33.2 °C 22 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Apr after 31.7 °C 31 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 May after 31.2 °C 37 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
2 May after 30.3 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
3 May after 32.8 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.4 mm High 30

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Apr 2019
After · 30 Apr 2019

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 · 46Every 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 Guatemala ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Jacaltenango fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 April 2019 and 23 April 2019: 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 1,095 hectares (11.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Jacaltenango (1,101 ha, 6.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.5 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 46 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 Guatemala (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: 122 · 123 · 1566

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
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 122 · 123 · 1566.

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 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). 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.