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Azoyú fire, March 2017 Azoyú

Out · last detection 10 Mar 2017, 19:42 UTC

The fire started on 4 March 2017 in Azoyú, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,938 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 435th largest in Guerrero since 2016 (of 612 with a page). Number 249 in Mexico in 2017, of 375.

Burnt area
1,938ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
4 Mar 2017 – 10 Mar 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
4 Mar
2017
Heat detections
73
in a single hotspot: 56 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
714MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Mar 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Mar10 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

45678910

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
39km/h · peak gust
20%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. Azoyú where it started
    1,950 ha reached on 28 Feb
    4.9 %

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)
4 Mar 37.8 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Mar 36.0 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Mar 36.2 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Mar 36.1 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Mar 36.8 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Mar 35.7 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Mar 35.2 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Mar after 36.0 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm High 38
12 Mar after 35.6 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
13 Mar after 34.8 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.7 mm High 30
14 Mar after 35.6 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.9 mm High 26
15 Mar after 34.0 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.9 mm High 25
16 Mar after 35.3 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.7 mm High 28
17 Mar after 35.0 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
18 Mar after 35.8 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 Mar after 36.7 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 Mar after 37.4 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Feb 2017
After · 17 Mar 2017

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 · 73Every 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 Azoyú fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 March 2017 and 10 March 2017: 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 1,938 hectares (19.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Azoyú (1,950 ha, 4.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, class Very 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.

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 (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.