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Apatzingán fire, May 2018 Apatzingán

Out · last detection 20 May 2018, 20:08 UTC

The fire started on 18 May 2018 in Apatzingán, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,506 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 110th largest in Michoacan de Ocampo since 2016 (of 111 with a page). Number 233 in Mexico in 2018, of 235.

Burnt area
1,506ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
18 May 2018 – 20 May 2018
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
18 May
2018
Heat detections
42
in a single hotspot: 47 MW
Danger at start
17
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
475MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 May 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 May20 May

How it evolved, day by day

181920

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
30km/h · peak gust
34%lowest humidity

It had gone one day 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. Apatzingán 126,191 inhabitants where it started
    1,513 ha reached on 16 May
    0.9 %

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 May 37.3 °C 37 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
19 May 37.6 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
20 May 36.4 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
21 May after 36.6 °C 44 % 35 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 21
22 May after 38.2 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
23 May after 38.1 °C 36 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
24 May after 36.4 °C 39 % 23 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 18
25 May after 38.1 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
26 May after 37.1 °C 41 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
27 May after 37.7 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
28 May after 38.3 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
29 May after 38.2 °C 39 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
30 May after 39.8 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 May 2018
After · 27 May 2018

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 · 42Every 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 Apatzingán fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 May 2018 and 20 May 2018: 3 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 1,506 hectares (15.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Apatzingán (1,513 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 21, class High.
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.

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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 (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.