San Ignacio fire, March 2023 San Ignacio, El Porvenir
The fire started on 28 March 2023 in San Ignacio, Honduras, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,704 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 13th largest in Francisco Morazán since 2016 (of 177 with a page). Number 6 in Honduras in 2023, of 149.
- Burnt area
- 4,704ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 14days
- 28 Mar 2023 – 10 Apr 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 28 Mar
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 223
- in a single hotspot: 51 MW
- Danger at start
- 27
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 1.6GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 183 ha in 2016, 1,077 ha in 2017, 3,006 ha in 2018, 2,524 ha in 2019, 3,503 ha in 2020, 2,050 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,347 ha that had burned before.
- 2,845 ha San Ignacio fire, March 2018 6,368 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,312 ha Orica fire, March 2020 63,428 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,014 ha San Ignacio fire, March 2019 2,980 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,202 ha El Porvenir fire, March 2022 1,374 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,191 ha Cedros fire, March 2020 22,862 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 820 ha San Ignacio fire, March 2017 2,300 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 549 ha El Porvenir fire, April 2022 3,530 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 356 ha San Ignacio fire, April 2019 1,516 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
San Ignacio where it started4,173 ha reached on 27 Mar13 %
-
559 ha reached on 2 Apr1.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 Mar | 32.2 °C | 29 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 28 Mar | 32.7 °C | 27 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 29 Mar | 33.4 °C | 26 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 30 Mar | 27.7 °C | 44 % | 44 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 25 |
| 31 Mar | 30.8 °C | 32 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 1 Apr | 30.9 °C | 34 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 2 Apr | 32.1 °C | 25 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 3 Apr | 31.8 °C | 28 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 4 Apr | 32.0 °C | 26 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 5 Apr | 33.0 °C | 21 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 6 Apr | 32.2 °C | 29 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 7 Apr | 33.1 °C | 25 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 8 Apr | 32.8 °C | 26 % | 32 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 33 |
| 9 Apr | 31.1 °C | 31 % | 34 km/h | 1.4 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 10 Apr | 32.9 °C | 23 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 11 Apr after | 33.1 °C | 25 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 12 Apr after | 34.4 °C | 24 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 13 Apr after | 32.8 °C | 26 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 14 Apr after | 32.5 °C | 32 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 15 Apr after | 35.2 °C | 25 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 16 Apr after | 35.1 °C | 25 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 17 Apr after | 32.9 °C | 30 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 18 Apr after | 32.6 °C | 30 % | 32 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 35 |
| 19 Apr after | 33.8 °C | 26 % | 37 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 36 |
| 20 Apr after | 33.9 °C | 29 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 21 Apr after | 34.9 °C | 28 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 22 Apr after | 37.0 °C | 21 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 23 Apr after | 33.9 °C | 32 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 24 Apr after | 34.1 °C | 30 % | 31 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 36 |
| 25 Apr after | 36.0 °C | 23 % | 24 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 36 |
| 26 Apr after | 34.5 °C | 31 % | 27 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 36 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 12 April 2023 the air beside the fire reached 84 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 45: 3.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 223Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 22,862 haCedros21 March 2020 · 41 days · 14 km away
- 7,183 haCedros15 March 2020 · 38 days · 17 km away
- 7,933 haCedros23 March 2020 · 39 days · 21 km away
- 63,428 haOrica26 March 2020 · 36 days · 26 km away
- 15,714 haGuayapeMarch 2020 · 29 days · 33 km away
- 16,093 haCedros25 March 2020 · 37 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the San Ignacio fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 March 2023 and 10 April 2023: 14 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 4,704 hectares (47.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: San Ignacio (4,173 ha, 13 %); El Porvenir (559 ha, 1.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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.
Report an error
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.