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San Luis fire, May 2016 San Luis

Out · last detection 2 Jun 2016, 08:02 UTC

The fire started on 23 May 2016 in San Luis, Guatemala, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,436 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 65th largest in Petén since 2016 (of 157 with a page). Number 8 in Guatemala in 2016, of 33.

Burnt area
1,436ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
23 May 2016 – 2 Jun 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
23 May
2016
Heat detections
105
in a single hotspot: 57 MW
Danger at start
19
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
532MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Jun 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 May2 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

232425262829303112

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
41km/h · peak gust
35%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.4 mm on 3 Jun.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. San Luis 48,745 inhabitants where it started
    1,443 ha reached on 16 May
    0.5 %

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)
23 May 36.0 °C 45 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
24 May 35.7 °C 43 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
25 May 35.1 °C 44 % 38 km/h 0.2 mm High 23
26 May 33.4 °C 50 % 37 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 18
27 May 34.4 °C 46 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
28 May 36.1 °C 35 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
29 May 36.1 °C 41 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
30 May 34.9 °C 44 % 33 km/h 0.7 mm High 23
31 May 35.3 °C 42 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
1 Jun 35.7 °C 38 % 41 km/h 0.7 mm High 28
2 Jun 35.4 °C 42 % 38 km/h 1.6 mm Moderate 19
3 Jun after 35.0 °C 46 % 35 km/h 3.4 mm Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 May 2016
After · 9 Jun 2016

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 · 105Every 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 Guatemala ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the San Luis fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 May 2016 and 2 June 2016: 11 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 1,436 hectares (14.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered San Luis (1,443 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.1 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Guatemala (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: 122 · 123 · 1566

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
What do you think is wrong?

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 122 · 123 · 1566.

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 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). 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.