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Bacanora fire, June 2017 Bacanora, San Pedro de la Cueva, Soyopa

Out · last detection 18 Jun 2017, 20:11 UTC

The fire started on 8 June 2017 in Bacanora, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,769 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 15th largest in Sonora since 2016 (of 93 with a page). Number 26 in Mexico in 2017, of 375.

Burnt area
8,769ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
8 Jun 2017 – 18 Jun 2017
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
8 Jun
2017
Heat detections
822
in a single hotspot: 103 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
7.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Jun 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Jun18 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

89101112131415161718

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
48km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 24 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. Bacanora where it started
    4,516 ha reached on 8 Jun
    4.0 %
  2. San Pedro de la Cueva
    4,098 ha reached on 8 Jun
    1.8 %
  3. Soyopa
    182 ha reached on 10 Jun
    0.1 %

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, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 21,132 ha (the satellite measured 8,769 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

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)
8 Jun 32.8 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
9 Jun 33.3 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Jun 33.0 °C 17 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Jun 31.1 °C 23 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
12 Jun 32.1 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Jun 35.2 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Jun 37.1 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
15 Jun 36.7 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
16 Jun 35.2 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
17 Jun 35.4 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
18 Jun 36.9 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.4 mm Extreme 52
19 Jun after 38.2 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 53
20 Jun after 36.4 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
21 Jun after 35.5 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 44
22 Jun after 32.5 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm High 37
23 Jun after 34.7 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Jun after 37.8 °C 21 % 60 km/h 1.9 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Jun 2017
After · 25 Jun 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 · 822Every 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 Bacanora fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 June 2017 and 18 June 2017: 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 8,769 hectares (87.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Bacanora (4,516 ha, 4.0 %); San Pedro de la Cueva (4,098 ha, 1.8 %); Soyopa (182 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.2 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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.

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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.