Skip to content
worldfires
SV · El Salvador · →

Jucuarán fire, 1 March 2017 Jucuarán, Chirilagua

Out · last detection 13 Mar 2017, 18:44 UTC

The fire started on 1 March 2017 in Jucuarán, El Salvador, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,045 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

Number 2 in El Salvador in 2017, of 17.

Burnt area
4,045ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
1 Mar 2017 – 13 Mar 2017
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
1 Mar
2017
Heat detections
207
in a single hotspot: 49 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Mar 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Mar13 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

1345678910111213

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
54km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.0 mm on 14 Mar.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Jucuarán where it started
    3,995 ha reached on 1 Mar
    16 %
  2. Chirilagua
    56 ha reached on 5 Mar
    0.3 %

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)
1 Mar 33.9 °C 39 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
2 Mar 34.3 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
3 Mar 34.4 °C 35 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Mar 34.8 °C 28 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Mar 34.7 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
6 Mar 33.8 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
7 Mar 34.2 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Mar 34.5 °C 34 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Mar 33.6 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Mar 33.0 °C 42 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Mar 33.3 °C 37 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Mar 33.1 °C 44 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
13 Mar 32.3 °C 53 % 31 km/h 0.6 mm High 24
14 Mar after 32.7 °C 47 % 30 km/h 11.0 mm Low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Feb 2017
After · 20 Mar 2017

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 · 207Every 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 El Salvador ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Jucuarán fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 March 2017 and 13 March 2017: 13 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 4,045 hectares (40.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Jucuarán (3,995 ha, 16 %); Chirilagua (56 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of El Salvador (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
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.

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 (Public Domain). 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.