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Salamá fire, 4 May 2023 Salamá, Manto

Out · last detection 11 May 2023, 07:50 UTC

The fire started on 4 May 2023 in Salamá, Honduras, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,914 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 64th largest in Olancho since 2016 (of 227 with a page). Number 38 in Honduras in 2023, of 149.

The power measured by the satellite is low (28.2 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
1,914ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
4 May 2023 – 11 May 2023
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
4 May
2023
Heat detections
83
in a single hotspot: 28 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
591MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 May 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 May11 May

How it evolved, day by day

4567891011

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
41km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.8 mm on 12 May.

This area had burned before

60% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,280 ha in 2019, 3 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,155 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Salamá where it started
    1,627 ha reached on 30 Apr
    4.8 %
  2. Manto
    300 ha reached on 4 May
    0.6 %

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)
27 Apr 33.6 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
28 Apr 33.9 °C 36 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Apr 34.5 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
30 Apr 31.5 °C 44 % 31 km/h 11.7 mm Very low 4
1 May 30.2 °C 52 % 26 km/h 4.1 mm Very low 3
2 May 33.2 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
3 May 30.8 °C 53 % 33 km/h 4.1 mm Very low 3
4 May 32.7 °C 36 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
5 May 32.4 °C 36 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
6 May 33.2 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
7 May 33.2 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
8 May 31.0 °C 49 % 33 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 20
9 May 33.6 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
10 May 32.1 °C 42 % 31 km/h 0.3 mm High 23
11 May 31.7 °C 42 % 28 km/h 3.0 mm Low 7
12 May after 32.4 °C 46 % 40 km/h 11.8 mm Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Apr 2023
After · 18 May 2023

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 9 May 2023 the air beside the fire reached 37 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak37 µg/m³
Days over the guideline11 days
PM1053 µg/m³
Optical depth1.55
234567891011121314
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 · 83Every 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 4 May 2023 and 11 May 2023: 8 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 1,914 hectares (19.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Salamá (1,627 ha, 4.8 %); Manto (300 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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

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 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.