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MX · Mexico · –

Badiraguato fire, June 2021 Badiraguato, Culiacán

Out · last detection 10 Jun 2021, 21:06 UTC

The fire started on 5 June 2021 in Badiraguato, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,123 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 52th largest in Sinaloa since 2016 (of 81 with a page). Number 184 in Mexico in 2021, of 294.

The power measured by the satellite is low (18.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
2,123ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
5 Jun 2021 – 11 Jun 2021
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
5 Jun
2021
Heat detections
92
in a single hotspot: 18 MW
Danger at start
17
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
81MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Jun11 Jun
10 Jun 2021

How it evolved, day by day

5 Jun 2021 · 31 MW · 7 6 Jun 2021 · 43 MW · 9 7 Jun 2021 · 196 MW · 30 8 Jun 2021 · 151 MW · 30 9 Jun 2021 · 52 MW · 13 10 Jun 2021 · 10 MW · 3
5 Jun 7 Jun 9 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

37°high
43km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.3 mm on 17 Jun.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.3% of the area of London (21 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. Badiraguato where it started
    1,606 ha reached on 5 Jun
    0.3 %
  2. Culiacán 13,197 inhabitants
    523 ha reached on 7 Jun
    0.1 %

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 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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.

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

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)
5 Jun 33.7 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 17
6 Jun 34.6 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Jun 35.5 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Jun 37.4 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Jun 35.6 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Jun 33.2 °C 43 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Jun 33.3 °C 48 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Jun after 32.8 °C 46 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Jun after 33.3 °C 43 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Jun after 31.8 °C 45 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Jun after 32.4 °C 45 % 38 km/h 0.3 mm High 30
16 Jun after 34.3 °C 42 % 40 km/h 0.6 mm High 30
17 Jun after 34.6 °C 37 % 38 km/h 5.3 mm High 35

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 17.0, a minimum humidity of 29% and rain the day before. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 18.

FWI at the start 17.0
Minimum humidity 29 %
Days without rain 0
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Otáez fire, May 2018
2,601 ha 20 days FWI 19.7 Min. humidity 28 % 138 km away, in 2018

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.6 mm on 4 Jun.

What happened to them

15 days
median duration
1,823 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.3 mm
rain at the end (median; 16 of 18 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (2,123 ha against a median of 1,823 ha) and lasted 7 days, against 15 days.

In 2 of 18, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.3 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

5.3 mmfirst rain
17 Jun6 days after it ended
43km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 11 Jun, and on 17 Jun 5.3 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 16 of 18, with a median of 2.3 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 May 2021
After · 18 Jun 2021

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 · 92Every 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 Badiraguato fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 5 June 2021 to 11 June 2021 (7 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 June 2021 to 10 June 2021.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,123 hectares (21.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Badiraguato (1,606 ha, 0.3 %); Culiacán (523 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 18. Their median duration was 15 days and their median area 1,823 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In 2 of 18, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.3 mm.

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.

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
What do you think is wrong?

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 5 June 2021 to 10 June 2021. 92 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • 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 2020, 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.