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Silca fire, March 2019 Silca, Manto, Salamá

Out · last detection 9 Apr 2019, 18:50 UTC

The fire started on 18 March 2019 in Silca, Honduras, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,097 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 30th largest in Olancho since 2016 (of 227 with a page). Number 13 in Honduras in 2019, of 93.

Burnt area
3,097ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
23days
18 Mar 2019 – 9 Apr 2019
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
18 Mar
2019
Heat detections
184
in a single hotspot: 37 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Apr 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Mar9 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

181920222325272829303112345679

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
52km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 12.0 mm on 10 Apr.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Silca where it started
    2,625 ha reached on 18 Mar
    10 %
  2. Manto
    321 ha reached on 29 Mar
    0.6 %
  3. Salamá
    170 ha reached on 5 Apr
    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)
18 Mar 32.9 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm High 34
19 Mar 32.1 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Mar 32.4 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
21 Mar 30.4 °C 36 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
22 Mar 29.9 °C 36 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Mar 31.5 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Mar 31.5 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
25 Mar 31.9 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Mar 32.0 °C 30 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Mar 30.5 °C 30 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Mar 30.0 °C 33 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Mar 32.2 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Mar 32.9 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
31 Mar 32.5 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Apr 33.6 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Apr 31.1 °C 39 % 39 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 20
3 Apr 31.1 °C 40 % 45 km/h 0.6 mm High 26
4 Apr 30.1 °C 44 % 43 km/h 0.3 mm High 26
5 Apr 30.9 °C 37 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
6 Apr 31.6 °C 31 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Apr 29.8 °C 43 % 43 km/h 0.7 mm High 24
8 Apr 32.8 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Apr 33.1 °C 37 % 26 km/h 32.8 mm Very low 4
10 Apr after 30.8 °C 52 % 23 km/h 12.0 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Mar 2019
After · 16 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 · 184Every 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 Silca fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 March 2019 and 9 April 2019: 23 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 3,097 hectares (31.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Silca (2,625 ha, 10 %); Manto (321 ha, 0.6 %); Salamá (170 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.6 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 52 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.