How long did the Mayarí fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 February 2023 and 15 March 2023: 26 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 14,928 hectares (149.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mayarí (14,393 ha, 10 %); Mella (600 ha, 1.7 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 28.7 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 52 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 Cuba (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

CU · Cuba · 2023-02-18 → 2023-03-15

Mayarí fire, February 2023 Mayarí, Mella

Out · last detection 15 Mar 2023, 07:17 UTC

The fire started on 18 February 2023 in Mayarí, Cuba, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,928 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in Holguín since 2016 (of 30 with a page). The largest in Cuba in 2023, of 46.

Burnt area: 14,928ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 26days; 18 Feb 2023 – 15 Mar 2023
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 18 Feb; 2023
Heat detections: 895; in a single hotspot: 151 MW
Danger at start: 18; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 8.5GW; sum of detected power

Play back 15 Mar 2023

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Feb15 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

1819202122232425262728123456789101112131415

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

The weather it burned in

29°high

52km/h · peak gust

35%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 10.0 mm on 16 Mar.

This area had burned before

34% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,060 ha in 2017.

5,060 ha Mayarí fire, April 2017 8,389 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Mayarí where it started

14,393 ha reached on 18 Feb

10 %
Mella

600 ha reached on 28 Feb

1.7 %

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)
18 Feb	26.0 °C	48 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
19 Feb	25.9 °C	49 %	52 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 19
20 Feb	26.3 °C	45 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
21 Feb	26.6 °C	50 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
22 Feb	27.4 °C	48 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
23 Feb	25.8 °C	50 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
24 Feb	25.9 °C	46 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
25 Feb	25.4 °C	48 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
26 Feb	25.3 °C	45 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
27 Feb	25.8 °C	44 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
28 Feb	27.0 °C	37 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
1 Mar	26.7 °C	41 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
2 Mar	28.2 °C	41 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
3 Mar	28.4 °C	40 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
4 Mar	28.3 °C	44 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
5 Mar	27.2 °C	48 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
6 Mar	27.0 °C	47 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
7 Mar	26.7 °C	45 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
8 Mar	26.5 °C	39 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
9 Mar	23.8 °C	57 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
10 Mar	24.6 °C	45 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
11 Mar	27.9 °C	35 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
12 Mar	27.5 °C	43 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
13 Mar	27.7 °C	41 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
14 Mar	28.7 °C	38 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
15 Mar	27.1 °C	48 %	31 km/h	7.3 mm	Very low 3
16 Mar after	22.1 °C	61 %	50 km/h	10.0 mm	Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 11 Feb 2023

After · 22 Mar 2023

Before After

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 16 March 2023 the air beside the fire reached 49 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 21: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak49 µg/m³

Days over the guideline9 days

PM1072 µg/m³

Optical depth1.27

WHO 15

16171819202122232425262728123456789101112131415161718

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 · 895Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Cuba ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mayarí fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 February 2023 and 15 March 2023: 26 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 14,928 hectares (149.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mayarí (14,393 ha, 10 %); Mella (600 ha, 1.7 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 28.7 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 52 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 Cuba (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: 105

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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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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 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). 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.

Where it burned