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Minas fire, April 2020 Minas

Out · last detection 10 Apr 2020, 19:11 UTC

The fire started on 6 April 2020 in Minas, Cuba, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,280 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 9th largest in Camagüey since 2016 (of 63 with a page). Number 6 in Cuba in 2020, of 53.

Burnt area
2,280ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
6 Apr 2020 – 10 Apr 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
6 Apr
2020
Heat detections
75
in a single hotspot: 77 MW
Danger at start
20
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
1.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Apr 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Apr10 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

678910

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
39km/h · peak gust
40%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 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. Minas where it started
    2,290 ha reached on 6 Apr
    2.3 %

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)
6 Apr 32.4 °C 40 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
7 Apr 30.7 °C 46 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
8 Apr 31.1 °C 49 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
9 Apr 34.1 °C 41 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
10 Apr 35.0 °C 43 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
11 Apr after 34.0 °C 41 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
12 Apr after 33.8 °C 45 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
13 Apr after 33.3 °C 48 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
14 Apr after 33.5 °C 45 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
15 Apr after 34.1 °C 43 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
16 Apr after 35.0 °C 41 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
17 Apr after 32.5 °C 46 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
18 Apr after 34.6 °C 39 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
19 Apr after 34.6 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
20 Apr after 34.1 °C 40 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 28

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Mar 2020
After · 17 Apr 2020

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 · 75Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Minas fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 April 2020 and 10 April 2020: 5 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 2,280 hectares (22.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Minas (2,290 ha, 2.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.0 °C, humidity dropped to 40 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 21, 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.