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Álamos fire, April 2022 Álamos

Out · last detection 5 May 2022, 19:58 UTC

The fire started on 15 April 2022 in Álamos, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,489 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality. According to CONAFOR, it was detected on 15 April 2022 and declared extinguished on 2 May 2022.

It is the 23th largest in Sonora since 2016 (of 93 with a page). Number 16 in Mexico in 2022, of 235.

Burnt area
6,489ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
15 Apr 2022 – 4 May 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
15 Apr
2022
Heat detections
628
in a single hotspot: 46 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
146MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

5 May 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Apr4 May

How it evolved, day by day

15 Apr 2022 · 97 MW · 11 17 Apr 2022 · 225 MW · 43 18 Apr 2022 · 199 MW · 48 19 Apr 2022 · 256 MW · 61 20 Apr 2022 · 294 MW · 59 21 Apr 2022 · 224 MW · 58 22 Apr 2022 · 193 MW · 37 23 Apr 2022 · 186 MW · 37 24 Apr 2022 · 226 MW · 37 25 Apr 2022 · 32 MW · 10 26 Apr 2022 · 199 MW · 39 27 Apr 2022 · 204 MW · 41 28 Apr 2022 · 207 MW · 39 29 Apr 2022 · 183 MW · 50 30 Apr 2022 · 46 MW · 20 1 May 2022 · 42 MW · 14 2 May 2022 · 43 MW · 7 3 May 2022 · 27 MW · 7 4 May 2022 · 23 MW · 8 5 May 2022 · 7 MW · 2
15 Apr 19 Apr 20 Apr 22 Apr 25 Apr 28 Apr 1 May 4 May

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
44km/h · peak gust
5%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months 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

  1. Álamos where it started
    6,507 ha
    1.0 %

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.

Official record

According to CONAFOR, this fire started on 15 April 2022 and burned 5,435 ha (the satellite measured 6,489 ha).

CONAFOR (Comisión Nacional Forestal), estadística de incendios forestales en datos.gob.mx (CC BY 4.0). This is the agency’s consolidated statistic: it measures the area in its own way, which is why it can differ from the satellite.

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)
15 Apr 27.1 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Apr 28.8 °C 5 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Apr 32.6 °C 8 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
18 Apr 32.0 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
19 Apr 28.9 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Apr 29.5 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Apr 29.6 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Apr 27.7 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Apr 25.5 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Apr 26.2 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Apr 27.7 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Apr 29.7 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Apr 29.7 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Apr 29.0 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
29 Apr 28.8 °C 10 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
30 Apr 28.9 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
1 May 27.5 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
2 May 28.0 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 May 28.7 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
4 May 28.7 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 May after 28.8 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 May after 29.3 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 May after 29.1 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 May after 30.4 °C 15 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 May after 30.9 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 May after 30.4 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 May after 32.5 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 May after 34.5 °C 10 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
13 May after 31.8 °C 11 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
14 May after 31.9 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
15 May after 31.9 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Apr 2022
After · 11 May 2022

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 · 628Every 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 Mexico ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Álamos fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 April 2022 and 4 May 2022: 20 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter. According to CONAFOR, it was detected on 15 April 2022 and declared extinguished on 2 May 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,489 hectares (64.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Álamos (6,507 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.6 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Mexico (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
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 911.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 628 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with CONAFOR: 5,435 official ha against 6,489 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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 (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.