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Bolaños fire, 17 May 2019 Bolaños

Out · last detection 21 May 2019, 20:47 UTC

The fire started on 17 May 2019 in Bolaños, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,858 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 218th largest in Jalisco since 2016 (of 283 with a page). Number 269 in Mexico in 2019, of 364.

Burnt area
1,858ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
17 May 2019 – 21 May 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
17 May
2019
Heat detections
53
in a single hotspot: 60 MW
Danger at start
51
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
926MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 May 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 May21 May

How it evolved, day by day

1718192021

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
62km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 31 May.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Bolaños where it started
    1,866 ha reached on 17 May
    2.1 %

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, this fire started on 17 May 2019 and burned 1,153 ha (the satellite measured 1,858 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)
17 May 31.4 °C 18 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
18 May 29.9 °C 19 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
19 May 33.0 °C 10 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
20 May 31.8 °C 13 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
21 May 31.7 °C 9 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
22 May after 32.1 °C 9 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
23 May after 32.6 °C 13 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
24 May after 33.9 °C 17 % 48 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 50
25 May after 33.8 °C 22 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 May after 32.6 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 May after 31.0 °C 36 % 43 km/h 0.6 mm High 32
28 May after 31.4 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.5 mm High 34
29 May after 32.6 °C 19 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 May after 33.5 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 May after 33.4 °C 29 % 31 km/h 1.6 mm Moderate 21

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 May 2019
After · 28 May 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 · 53Every 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 Bolaños fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 May 2019 and 21 May 2019: 5 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 1,858 hectares (18.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bolaños (1,866 ha, 2.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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.

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.

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.