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Salamá fire, 5 April 2020 Salamá

Out · last detection 17 Apr 2020, 07:29 UTC

The fire started on 5 April 2020 in Salamá, Honduras, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,235 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 50th largest in Olancho since 2016 (of 227 with a page). Number 62 in Honduras in 2020, of 174.

Burnt area
2,235ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
5 Apr 2020 – 17 Apr 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
5 Apr
2020
Heat detections
153
in a single hotspot: 176 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Apr 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Apr17 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

567891011121314151617

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
49km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

13% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 282 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Salamá where it started
    2,248 ha reached on 29 Mar
    6.7 %

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)
29 Mar 29.3 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Mar 26.6 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
31 Mar 30.0 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
1 Apr 30.0 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
2 Apr 32.9 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Apr 31.5 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
4 Apr 31.2 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.7 mm High 29
5 Apr 30.7 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Apr 30.6 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
7 Apr 29.8 °C 29 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Apr 30.6 °C 26 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Apr 30.5 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Apr 33.1 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Apr 30.3 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
12 Apr 30.0 °C 24 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Apr 31.3 °C 28 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Apr 30.1 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Apr 30.6 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Apr 30.3 °C 17 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Apr 28.5 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Apr after 29.5 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
19 Apr after 29.5 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 Apr after 31.6 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Apr after 31.0 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
22 Apr after 29.9 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
23 Apr after 30.2 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Apr after 31.8 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Apr after 29.7 °C 29 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Apr after 29.8 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Apr after 29.5 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Mar 2020
After · 24 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 · 153Every 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 Honduras ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Salamá fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 April 2020 and 17 April 2020: 13 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 2,235 hectares (22.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Salamá (2,248 ha, 6.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.1 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, class Very 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

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
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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.