How long did the Sabá fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 April 2023 and 19 April 2023: 9 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 1,347 hectares (13.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Sabá (852 ha, 2.3 %); Gualaco (502 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 30.9 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, class High.

Where does this data come from?

From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Honduras (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

HN · Honduras · 2023-04-11 → 2023-04-19

Sabá fire, 11 April 2023 Sabá, Gualaco

Out · last detection 19 Apr 2023, 19:12 UTC

The fire started on 11 April 2023 in Sabá, Honduras, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,347 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 11th largest in Colón since 2016 (of 24 with a page). Number 80 in Honduras in 2023, of 149.

Burnt area: 1,347ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 9days; 11 Apr 2023 – 19 Apr 2023
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 11 Apr; 2023
Heat detections: 99; in a single hotspot: 293 MW
Danger at start: 22; High · FWI index
Energy released: 1.2GW; sum of detected power

Play back 19 Apr 2023

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Apr19 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

111213141516171819

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

45km/h · peak gust

29%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 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

Sabá where it started

852 ha reached on 11 Apr

2.3 %
Gualaco

502 ha reached on 11 Apr

0.2 %

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)
11 Apr	26.5 °C	38 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
12 Apr	26.6 °C	36 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
13 Apr	28.5 °C	33 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
14 Apr	29.2 °C	32 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
15 Apr	30.9 °C	29 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
16 Apr	30.4 °C	29 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
17 Apr	27.5 °C	35 %	43 km/h	0.4 mm	High 30
18 Apr	26.1 °C	43 %	34 km/h	1.7 mm	Low 10
19 Apr	28.3 °C	36 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
20 Apr after	29.7 °C	32 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
21 Apr after	30.0 °C	34 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
22 Apr after	29.6 °C	33 %	45 km/h	0.2 mm	High 28
23 Apr after	28.9 °C	36 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
24 Apr after	30.2 °C	36 %	41 km/h	0.6 mm	High 25
25 Apr after	28.9 °C	38 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
26 Apr after	30.3 °C	35 %	32 km/h	0.3 mm	High 25
27 Apr after	30.8 °C	33 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
28 Apr after	30.5 °C	37 %	39 km/h	0.1 mm	High 29
29 Apr after	31.2 °C	35 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 4 Apr 2023

After · 26 Apr 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 17 April 2023 the air beside the fire reached 132 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 62: 4.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak132 µg/m³

Days over the guideline9 days

PM10189 µg/m³

Optical depth0.89

WHO 15

910111213141516171819202122

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 · 99Every 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 Honduras ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Sabá fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 April 2023 and 19 April 2023: 9 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 1,347 hectares (13.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Sabá (852 ha, 2.3 %); Gualaco (502 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 30.9 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, class High.
Where does this data come from?: From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Honduras (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

ICF · Instituto de Conservación Forestal ↗
COPECO ↗

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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What really happened?

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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 ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)). 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