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Bacoachi fire, 13 June 2023 Fronteras, Bacoachi, Nacozari de García

Out · last detection 25 Jun 2023, 08:43 UTC

The fire started on 13 June 2023 in Bacoachi, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,118 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 20th largest in Sonora since 2016 (of 83 with a page). Number 23 in Mexico in 2023, of 285.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Bacoachi · 2017Fronteras · 2017Bacoachi · 2023Nacozari de García · 2017

Burnt area
7,118ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
13 Jun 2023 – 25 Jun 2023
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
13 Jun
2023
Heat detections
480
in a single hotspot: 67 MW
Danger at start
57
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
239MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Jun25 Jun
25 Jun 2023

How it evolved, day by day

13 Jun 2023 · 65 MW · 8 14 Jun 2023 · 122 MW · 17 15 Jun 2023 · 699 MW · 28 16 Jun 2023 · 565 MW · 99 17 Jun 2023 · 403 MW · 65 18 Jun 2023 · 310 MW · 69 19 Jun 2023 · 229 MW · 89 20 Jun 2023 · 56 MW · 21 21 Jun 2023 · 164 MW · 35 22 Jun 2023 · 52 MW · 2 23 Jun 2023 · 367 MW · 26 24 Jun 2023 · 66 MW · 16 25 Jun 2023 · 4 MW · 5
13 Jun 15 Jun 17 Jun 19 Jun 21 Jun 23 Jun 25 Jun

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
60km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone 25 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

24% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,751 ha in 2017.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 4.5% of the area of London (71 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Fronteras
    4,809 ha reached on 13 Jun
    1.8 %
  2. Bacoachi where it started
    1,800 ha reached on 13 Jun
    1.5 %
  3. Nacozari de García
    517 ha reached on 15 Jun
    0.3 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

Official record

According to CONAFOR, this fire started on 12 June 2023 and burned 9,769 ha (the satellite measured 7,118 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)
13 Jun 29.4 °C 6 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
14 Jun 30.4 °C 7 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
15 Jun 30.8 °C 8 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
16 Jun 31.4 °C 9 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
17 Jun 31.0 °C 9 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
18 Jun 31.9 °C 9 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
19 Jun 31.6 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
20 Jun 32.6 °C 12 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
21 Jun 33.0 °C 12 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
22 Jun 33.5 °C 10 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
23 Jun 34.0 °C 8 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
24 Jun 34.4 °C 10 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
25 Jun 35.0 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
26 Jun after 36.6 °C 8 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
27 Jun after 33.6 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.3 mm Extreme 59
28 Jun after 32.7 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
29 Jun after 31.9 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
30 Jun after 32.5 °C 7 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
1 Jul after 33.6 °C 6 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
2 Jul after 33.0 °C 9 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
3 Jul after 33.8 °C 10 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
4 Jul after 34.2 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
5 Jul after 34.2 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Jun 2023
After · 2 Jul 2023

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 19 June 2023 the air beside the fire reached 25 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak25 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1036 µg/m³
Optical depth0.59
1112131415161718192021222324252627
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 480Every 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 Bacoachi fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 13 June 2023 to 25 June 2023 (13 days). The perimeter dates it from 13 June 2023 to 24 June 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,118 hectares (71.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Fronteras (4,809 ha, 1.8 %); Bacoachi (1,800 ha, 1.5 %); Nacozari de García (517 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.0 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 13 June 2023 to 24 June 2023. 480 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with CONAFOR: 9,769 official ha against 7,118 ha of perimeter; similar, but with reservations.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.