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Silca fire, April 2023 Juticalpa, Silca, Salamá

Out · last detection 19 Apr 2023, 19:12 UTC

The fire started on 10 April 2023 in Silca, Honduras, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,945 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 62th largest in Olancho since 2016 (of 227 with a page). Number 37 in Honduras in 2023, of 149.

The power measured by the satellite is low (11.7 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
1,945ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
10 Apr 2023 – 19 Apr 2023
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
10 Apr
2023
Heat detections
48
in a single hotspot: 12 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
278MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Apr 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Apr19 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

1012131415161719

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
44km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

20% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 108 ha in 2017, 274 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Juticalpa
    1,184 ha reached on 12 Apr
    0.4 %
  2. Silca where it started
    642 ha reached on 10 Apr
    2.5 %
  3. Salamá
    130 ha reached on 12 Apr
    0.4 %

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)
10 Apr 33.2 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
11 Apr 34.2 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Apr 35.3 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Apr 33.3 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Apr 32.8 °C 38 % 44 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
15 Apr 35.5 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
16 Apr 35.6 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
17 Apr 34.3 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Apr 32.9 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.2 mm High 32
19 Apr 34.1 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Apr after 33.9 °C 34 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Apr after 35.6 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
22 Apr after 38.4 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
23 Apr after 34.6 °C 36 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Apr after 34.9 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
25 Apr after 36.5 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
26 Apr after 35.1 °C 36 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
27 Apr after 35.3 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Apr after 35.6 °C 35 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Apr after 36.1 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Apr 2023
After · 26 Apr 2023

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 · Copernicus

On 13 April 2023 the air beside the fire reached 47 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 35: 2.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak47 µg/m³
Days over the guideline13 days
PM1068 µg/m³
Optical depth1.16
8910111213141516171819202122
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 48Every 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 10 April 2023 and 19 April 2023: 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 1,945 hectares (19.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Juticalpa (1,184 ha, 0.4 %); Silca (642 ha, 2.5 %); Salamá (130 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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
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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.