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San Ignacio fire, March 2018 San Ignacio, El Porvenir

Out · last detection 15 Apr 2018, 19:22 UTC

The fire started on 26 March 2018 in San Ignacio, Honduras, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,368 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 7th largest in Francisco Morazán since 2016 (of 177 with a page). The largest in Honduras in 2018, of 73.

Burnt area
6,368ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
21days
26 Mar 2018 – 15 Apr 2018
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
26 Mar
2018
Heat detections
308
in a single hotspot: 93 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Apr 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Mar15 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

2728293031123456789101112131415

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
46km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.4 mm on 16 Apr.

This area had burned before

49% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,280 ha in 2016, 1,857 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. San Ignacio where it started
    4,445 ha reached on 27 Mar
    13 %
  2. El Porvenir
    1,960 ha reached on 30 Mar
    4.7 %

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)
26 Mar 30.7 °C 34 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Mar 31.7 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
28 Mar 30.6 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
29 Mar 31.6 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
30 Mar 33.5 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
31 Mar 33.0 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Apr 30.2 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Apr 32.3 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Apr 31.2 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
4 Apr 30.9 °C 36 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
5 Apr 31.4 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.5 mm High 28
6 Apr 31.5 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
7 Apr 31.6 °C 31 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 Apr 33.3 °C 30 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
9 Apr 30.3 °C 42 % 33 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 20
10 Apr 31.2 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
11 Apr 32.5 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 Apr 30.9 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
13 Apr 31.2 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
14 Apr 32.6 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
15 Apr 31.2 °C 35 % 34 km/h 2.2 mm Moderate 13
16 Apr after 20.8 °C 73 % 44 km/h 3.4 mm Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Mar 2018
After · 22 Apr 2018

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 · 308Every 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 San Ignacio fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 March 2018 and 15 April 2018: 21 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 6,368 hectares (63.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: San Ignacio (4,445 ha, 13 %); El Porvenir (1,960 ha, 4.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.