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Bolaños fire, March 2021 Bolaños, Mezquitic

Out · last detection 24 Mar 2021, 20:27 UTC

The fire started on 21 March 2021 in Bolaños, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,662 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 112th largest in Jalisco since 2016 (of 283 with a page). Number 133 in Mexico in 2021, of 295.

Burnt area
2,662ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
21 Mar 2021 – 24 Mar 2021
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
21 Mar
2021
Heat detections
92
in a single hotspot: 125 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Mar 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Mar24 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

21222324

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
68km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.4 mm on 3 Apr.

This area had burned before

90% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,423 ha in 2017, 178 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,393 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Bolaños where it started
    2,476 ha reached on 21 Mar
    2.8 %
  2. Mezquitic
    198 ha reached on 21 Mar
    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, this fire started on 21 March 2021 and burned 3,544 ha (the satellite measured 2,662 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)
21 Mar 31.2 °C 10 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Mar 30.4 °C 19 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
23 Mar 27.8 °C 21 % 65 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Mar 27.3 °C 20 % 68 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
25 Mar after 29.3 °C 15 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Mar after 30.9 °C 13 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
27 Mar after 31.5 °C 9 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
28 Mar after 34.4 °C 9 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Mar after 32.0 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 39
30 Mar after 31.7 °C 13 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
31 Mar after 35.6 °C 10 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Apr after 31.7 °C 24 % 53 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 44
2 Apr after 32.5 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Apr after 32.6 °C 28 % 38 km/h 3.4 mm Moderate 11

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Mar 2021
After · 31 Mar 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 Bolaños fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 March 2021 and 24 March 2021: 4 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 2,662 hectares (26.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bolaños (2,476 ha, 2.8 %); Mezquitic (198 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.2 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 68 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.