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Bacalar fire, April 2019 Bacalar

Out · last detection 14 Apr 2019, 18:58 UTC

The fire started on 4 April 2019 in Bacalar, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,046 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 31th largest in Quintana Roo since 2016 (of 40 with a page). Number 245 in Mexico in 2019, of 364.

Burnt area
2,046ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
4 Apr 2019 – 14 Apr 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
4 Apr
2019
Heat detections
233
in a single hotspot: 54 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
926MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Apr 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Apr14 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

456781011121314

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
58km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 14.8 mm on 15 Apr.

This area had burned before

92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,885 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Bacalar 12,527 inhabitants where it started
    2,059 ha reached on 28 Mar
    0.3 %

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)
28 Mar 33.8 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Mar 34.4 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Mar 35.6 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
31 Mar 36.1 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
1 Apr 35.9 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
2 Apr 35.1 °C 38 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Apr 35.3 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
4 Apr 35.0 °C 38 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Apr 35.8 °C 36 % 46 km/h 0.5 mm High 37
6 Apr 34.7 °C 46 % 56 km/h 0.3 mm High 36
7 Apr 35.3 °C 42 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
8 Apr 37.6 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Apr 33.4 °C 36 % 45 km/h 3.1 mm Moderate 17
10 Apr 36.8 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Apr 37.2 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Apr 34.7 °C 47 % 47 km/h 0.2 mm High 32
13 Apr 35.2 °C 48 % 53 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
14 Apr 38.8 °C 34 % 48 km/h 1.3 mm High 31
15 Apr after 31.7 °C 60 % 33 km/h 14.8 mm Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Mar 2019
After · 21 Apr 2019

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 · 233Every 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 4 April 2019 and 14 April 2019: 11 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 2,046 hectares (20.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bacalar (2,059 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.