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San Ignacio fire, 15 March 2019 San Ignacio, El Porvenir

Out · last detection 27 Mar 2019, 06:45 UTC

The fire started on 15 March 2019 in San Ignacio, Honduras, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,980 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 32th largest in Francisco Morazán since 2016 (of 177 with a page). Number 15 in Honduras in 2019, of 93.

Burnt area
2,980ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
15 Mar 2019 – 27 Mar 2019
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
15 Mar
2019
Heat detections
160
in a single hotspot: 41 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Mar 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Mar27 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

151617181920212324252627

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
49km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 56 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.9 mm on 9 Apr.

This area had burned before

88% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,193 ha in 2017, 2,373 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,616 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. San Ignacio where it started
    2,032 ha reached on 15 Mar
    6.1 %
  2. El Porvenir
    966 ha reached on 15 Mar
    2.3 %

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)
15 Mar 33.3 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Mar 33.4 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
17 Mar 32.7 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
18 Mar 32.9 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Mar 32.7 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Mar 32.3 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Mar 30.0 °C 35 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Mar 29.6 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
23 Mar 30.7 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Mar 31.5 °C 25 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
25 Mar 32.7 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Mar 31.6 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Mar 30.5 °C 25 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Mar after 29.8 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Mar after 31.6 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
30 Mar after 33.1 °C 25 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
31 Mar after 33.3 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
1 Apr after 33.8 °C 26 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Apr after 33.6 °C 28 % 35 km/h 2.6 mm Moderate 18
3 Apr after 31.2 °C 37 % 43 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 20
4 Apr after 30.5 °C 37 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
5 Apr after 30.8 °C 37 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
6 Apr after 32.6 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Apr after 31.1 °C 37 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
8 Apr after 32.0 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Apr after 32.3 °C 36 % 24 km/h 3.9 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Mar 2019
After · 3 Apr 2019

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 · 160Every 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 15 March 2019 and 27 March 2019: 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 2,980 hectares (29.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: San Ignacio (2,032 ha, 6.1 %); El Porvenir (966 ha, 2.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.8 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.

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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.