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Bacalar fire, May 2016 Bacalar

Out · last detection 5 Jun 2016, 19:56 UTC

The fire started on 13 May 2016 in Bacalar, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,540 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 21th largest in Quintana Roo since 2016 (of 40 with a page). Number 75 in Mexico in 2016, of 208.

Burnt area
2,540ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
23days
13 May 2016 – 4 Jun 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
13 May
2016
Heat detections
261
in a single hotspot: 96 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Jun 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 May4 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

1315161718192021222324252627282930311245

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
52km/h · peak gust
31%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 8 Jun.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Bacalar 12,527 inhabitants where it started
    2,557 ha reached on 12 May
    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)
12 May 36.0 °C 50 % 43 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
13 May 35.1 °C 49 % 34 km/h 0.3 mm High 26
14 May 35.4 °C 43 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
15 May 36.9 °C 41 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
16 May 36.8 °C 46 % 41 km/h 2.7 mm Moderate 15
17 May 38.1 °C 46 % 48 km/h 0.6 mm High 25
18 May 36.4 °C 57 % 41 km/h 2.1 mm Moderate 12
19 May 36.3 °C 45 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
20 May 35.2 °C 52 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
21 May 36.6 °C 38 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 May 36.6 °C 42 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
23 May 36.9 °C 40 % 39 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
24 May 37.7 °C 40 % 39 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
25 May 38.2 °C 38 % 40 km/h 0.4 mm High 32
26 May 37.5 °C 43 % 37 km/h 0.8 mm High 27
27 May 36.8 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
28 May 38.3 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 May 36.9 °C 41 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm High 34
30 May 37.3 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
31 May 36.4 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.5 mm High 35
1 Jun 38.1 °C 37 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Jun 37.1 °C 43 % 47 km/h 1.5 mm High 25
3 Jun 37.3 °C 47 % 42 km/h 1.1 mm High 25
4 Jun 34.6 °C 51 % 39 km/h 5.7 mm Low 7
5 Jun after 34.5 °C 53 % 40 km/h 8.6 mm Very low 4
6 Jun after 34.6 °C 46 % 29 km/h 10.2 mm Very low 3
7 Jun after 33.1 °C 59 % 24 km/h 0.6 mm Low 6
8 Jun after 35.9 °C 45 % 23 km/h 2.4 mm Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 May 2016
After · 11 Jun 2016

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 · 261Every 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 Bacalar fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 May 2016 and 4 June 2016: 23 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 2,540 hectares (25.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bacalar (2,557 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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.