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Orange Walk fire, 6 April 2016 Orange Walk, Cayo

Out · last detection 17 Apr 2016, 18:34 UTC

The fire started on 6 April 2016 in Orange Walk, Belize, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,151 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

Number 10 in Belize in 2016, of 11.

The power measured by the satellite is low (23.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
1,151ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
6 Apr 2016 – 17 Apr 2016
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
6 Apr
2016
Heat detections
49
in a single hotspot: 23 MW
Danger at start
2
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
277MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Apr 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Apr17 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

78910121314151617

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
42km/h · peak gust
49%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 19 Apr.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Orange Walk 54,152 inhabitants where it started
    1,093 ha reached on 7 Apr
    0.2 %
  2. Cayo 99,105 inhabitants
    63 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)
6 Apr 31.0 °C 59 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm Very low 2
7 Apr 31.2 °C 60 % 31 km/h 1.0 mm Very low 3
8 Apr 31.4 °C 60 % 31 km/h 1.7 mm Very low 3
9 Apr 31.2 °C 57 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm Low 6
10 Apr 31.9 °C 57 % 39 km/h 0.6 mm Low 8
11 Apr 32.4 °C 60 % 39 km/h 0.1 mm Low 9
12 Apr 32.2 °C 61 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm Low 9
13 Apr 32.3 °C 63 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm Low 10
14 Apr 33.1 °C 57 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
15 Apr 34.5 °C 49 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
16 Apr 34.4 °C 53 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
17 Apr 33.8 °C 55 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
18 Apr after 34.2 °C 52 % 44 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 16
19 Apr after 31.1 °C 64 % 42 km/h 1.5 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Mar 2016
After · 24 Apr 2016

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 · 49Every 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 Belize ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Orange Walk fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 April 2016 and 17 April 2016: 12 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 1,151 hectares (11.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Orange Walk (1,093 ha, 0.2 %); Cayo (63 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 49 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 15, class Moderate.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Belize (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.

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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 ADM1 (Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic). 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.