Skip to content
worldfires
GT · Guatemala · →

Nentón fire, May 2024 Nentón

Out · last detection 10 May 2024, 19:55 UTC

The fire started on 7 May 2024 in Nentón, Guatemala, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,103 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 15th largest in Huehuetenango since 2016 (of 17 with a page). Number 60 in Guatemala in 2024, of 70.

Burnt area
1,103ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
7 May 2024 – 10 May 2024
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
7 May
2024
Heat detections
43
in a single hotspot: 40 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
238MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 May 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 May10 May

How it evolved, day by day

78910

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
52km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.7 mm on 14 May.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Nentón where it started
    1,109 ha reached on 4 May
    1.4 %

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)
7 May 36.0 °C 18 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 May 35.0 °C 21 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
9 May 33.6 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
10 May 33.9 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 May after 32.2 °C 36 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 May after 33.3 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.4 mm High 28
13 May after 33.1 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
14 May after 32.8 °C 39 % 33 km/h 3.7 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Apr 2024
After · 17 May 2024

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 11 May 2024 the air beside the fire reached 72 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 58: 3.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak72 µg/m³
Days over the guideline9 days
PM10106 µg/m³
Optical depth1.59
5678910111213
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 · 43Every 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 Nentón fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 May 2024 and 10 May 2024: 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 1,103 hectares (11.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Nentón (1,109 ha, 1.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, class Very 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.