How long did the Vertientes fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 January 2023 and 18 January 2023: 7 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 1,111 hectares (11.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Vertientes (1,116 ha, 0.6 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 30.9 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 44 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 Cuba (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

CU · Cuba · 2023-01-12 → 2023-01-18

Vertientes fire, January 2023 Vertientes

Out · last detection 18 Jan 2023, 19:19 UTC

The fire started on 12 January 2023 in Vertientes, Cuba, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,111 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 52th largest in Camagüey since 2016 (of 63 with a page). Number 35 in Cuba in 2023, of 46.

The power measured by the satellite is low (27.5 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: 1,111ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 7days; 12 Jan 2023 – 18 Jan 2023
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 12 Jan; 2023
Heat detections: 27; in a single hotspot: 27 MW
Danger at start: 26; High · FWI index
Energy released: 299MW; sum of detected power

Play back 18 Jan 2023

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Jan18 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

121415161718

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

The weather it burned in

31°high

44km/h · peak gust

31%lowest humidity

It had gone 54 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

Vertientes where it started

1,116 ha reached on 12 Jan

0.6 %

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)
12 Jan	30.9 °C	44 %	34 km/h	0.2 mm	High 26
13 Jan	29.0 °C	54 %	34 km/h	0.2 mm	High 22
14 Jan	27.4 °C	39 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
15 Jan	26.0 °C	33 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
16 Jan	26.7 °C	31 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
17 Jan	28.3 °C	35 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
18 Jan	29.8 °C	35 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
19 Jan after	29.8 °C	40 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
20 Jan after	29.5 °C	45 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
21 Jan after	30.0 °C	44 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
22 Jan after	30.4 °C	46 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
23 Jan after	30.6 °C	44 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
24 Jan after	32.0 °C	37 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
25 Jan after	30.4 °C	44 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
26 Jan after	31.7 °C	38 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
27 Jan after	31.8 °C	42 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
28 Jan after	30.8 °C	49 %	48 km/h	0.2 mm	High 34

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 5 Jan 2023

After · 25 Jan 2023

Before After

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 20 January 2023 the air beside the fire reached 14 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak14 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1022 µg/m³

Optical depth0.23

101112131415161718192021

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 · 27Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Cuba ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Vertientes fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 January 2023 and 18 January 2023: 7 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 1,111 hectares (11.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Vertientes (1,116 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 30.9 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 44 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 Cuba (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: 105

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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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What really happened?

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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 105.

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 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). 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.

Where it burned