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Silca fire, 8 April 2020 Silca, Manto

Out · last detection 17 Apr 2020, 18:38 UTC

The fire started on 8 April 2020 in Silca, Honduras, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,079 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 193th largest in Olancho since 2016 (of 227 with a page). Number 154 in Honduras in 2020, of 174.

The power measured by the satellite is low (24.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
1,079ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
8 Apr 2020 – 17 Apr 2020
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
8 Apr
2020
Heat detections
41
in a single hotspot: 24 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
334MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Apr 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Apr17 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

810121314151617

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
48km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 28 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

73% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 844 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 791 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Silca where it started
    1,001 ha reached on 8 Apr
    3.9 %
  2. Manto
    84 ha reached on 8 Apr
    0.2 %

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)
8 Apr 35.4 °C 29 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
9 Apr 35.2 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Apr 37.8 °C 17 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Apr 34.9 °C 19 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Apr 34.7 °C 27 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
13 Apr 35.8 °C 32 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Apr 34.7 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 Apr 35.3 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Apr 35.0 °C 19 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Apr 33.4 °C 30 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Apr after 34.0 °C 30 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Apr after 34.3 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Apr after 36.9 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
21 Apr after 36.2 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
22 Apr after 34.9 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 38
23 Apr after 35.2 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Apr after 36.7 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Apr after 34.7 °C 30 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Apr after 34.6 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
27 Apr after 34.8 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Apr 2020
After · 24 Apr 2020

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 · 41Every 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 8 April 2020 and 17 April 2020: 10 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 1,079 hectares (10.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Silca (1,001 ha, 3.9 %); Manto (84 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.