How long did the Salamá fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 March 2019 and 9 April 2019: 27 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 6,965 hectares (69.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Salamá (4,430 ha, 13 %); La Unión (2,534 ha, 4.1 %); Manto (42 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 32.5 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, 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 · 2019-03-14 → 2019-04-09

Salamá fire, 14 March 2019 Salamá, La Unión, Manto

Out · last detection 9 Apr 2019, 18:50 UTC

The fire started on 14 March 2019 in Salamá, Honduras, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,965 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 11th largest in Olancho since 2016 (of 227 with a page). Number 2 in Honduras in 2019, of 93.

Burnt area: 6,965ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 27days; 14 Mar 2019 – 9 Apr 2019
Municipalities hit: 3; municipalities
Started on: 14 Mar; 2019
Heat detections: 409; in a single hotspot: 83 MW
Danger at start: 25; High · FWI index
Energy released: 3.0GW; sum of detected power

Play back 9 Apr 2019

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Mar9 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

1415161819202122232426272829303112345679

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

The weather it burned in

32°high

52km/h · peak gust

27%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.5 mm on 10 Apr.

This area had burned before

5% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 340 ha in 2018.

340 ha La Unión fire, April 2018 3,533 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Salamá where it started

4,430 ha reached on 11 Mar

13 %
La Unión

2,534 ha reached on 21 Mar

4.1 %
Manto

42 ha reached on 6 Apr

0.1 %

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 Mar	29.9 °C	44 %	43 km/h	0.1 mm	High 25
12 Mar	28.9 °C	47 %	41 km/h	0.2 mm	High 23
13 Mar	29.7 °C	43 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
14 Mar	30.4 °C	39 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
15 Mar	31.9 °C	33 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
16 Mar	32.0 °C	31 %	43 km/h	0.4 mm	High 28
17 Mar	29.4 °C	40 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
18 Mar	32.0 °C	27 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
19 Mar	30.9 °C	38 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
20 Mar	30.0 °C	38 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
21 Mar	27.8 °C	48 %	46 km/h	1.0 mm	Moderate 18
22 Mar	27.3 °C	45 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
23 Mar	28.8 °C	34 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
24 Mar	30.2 °C	31 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
25 Mar	30.4 °C	37 %	37 km/h	0.2 mm	High 27
26 Mar	29.4 °C	39 %	46 km/h	0.3 mm	High 31
27 Mar	28.3 °C	38 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
28 Mar	27.1 °C	43 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
29 Mar	29.3 °C	35 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
30 Mar	31.7 °C	33 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
31 Mar	32.1 °C	36 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
1 Apr	32.5 °C	32 %	39 km/h	1.6 mm	Moderate 20
2 Apr	30.9 °C	40 %	37 km/h	2.7 mm	Low 10
3 Apr	30.2 °C	43 %	38 km/h	0.6 mm	Moderate 19
4 Apr	29.1 °C	45 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
5 Apr	29.8 °C	42 %	38 km/h	0.3 mm	High 22
6 Apr	30.7 °C	35 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
7 Apr	29.6 °C	43 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
8 Apr	32.0 °C	30 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
9 Apr	32.1 °C	43 %	25 km/h	28.6 mm	Very low 3
10 Apr after	28.6 °C	64 %	30 km/h	7.5 mm	Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 7 Mar 2019

After · 16 Apr 2019

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.

Detections table · 409Every 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 Salamá fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 March 2019 and 9 April 2019: 27 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 6,965 hectares (69.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Salamá (4,430 ha, 13 %); La Unión (2,534 ha, 4.1 %); Manto (42 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 32.5 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, 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 ↗

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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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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