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Mella fire, 29 January 2023 Mella, Contramaestre, Urbano Noris

Out · last detection 30 Jan 2023, 06:01 UTC

The fire started on 29 January 2023 in Mella, Cuba, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,224 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the 6th largest in Santiago de Cuba since 2016 (of 10 with a page). Number 28 in Cuba in 2023, of 46.

Burnt area
1,224ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
2days
29 Jan 2023 – 30 Jan 2023
Municipalities hit
4
municipalities
Started on
29 Jan
2023
Heat detections
23
in a single hotspot: 61 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Energy released
342MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

30 Jan 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Jan30 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

2930

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
52km/h · peak gust
44%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Mella where it started
    1,138 ha reached on 29 Jan
    3.3 %
  2. Contramaestre
    45 ha
    0.1 %
  3. Urbano Noris
    35 ha
    0.0 %
  4. Palma Soriano
    12 ha
    0.0 %

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)
29 Jan 28.4 °C 54 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
30 Jan 30.7 °C 44 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
31 Jan after 31.0 °C 47 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
1 Feb after 30.0 °C 51 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
2 Feb after 30.5 °C 49 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
3 Feb after 31.0 °C 45 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
4 Feb after 30.0 °C 51 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
5 Feb after 31.6 °C 44 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 18
6 Feb after 31.9 °C 40 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
7 Feb after 29.6 °C 55 % 50 km/h 0.5 mm High 26
8 Feb after 31.1 °C 46 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
9 Feb after 31.1 °C 47 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm High 24

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Jan 2023
After · 6 Feb 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 27 January 2023 the air beside the fire reached 24 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak24 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1035 µg/m³
Optical depth0.32
272829303112
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 · 23Every 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 Cuba ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mella fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 January 2023 and 30 January 2023: 2 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 1,224 hectares (12.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Mella (1,138 ha, 3.3 %); Contramaestre (45 ha, 0.1 %); Urbano Noris (35 ha, 0.0 %); Palma Soriano (12 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.7 °C, humidity dropped to 44 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 23, 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

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 105.

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.