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Candelaria fire, March 2023 Candelaria

Out · last detection 21 Apr 2023, 18:35 UTC

The fire started on 26 March 2023 in Candelaria, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,232 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 31th largest in Campeche since 2016 (of 138 with a page). Number 94 in Mexico in 2023, of 285.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Candelaria · 2020Candelaria · 2023Candelaria · 2019Candelaria · 2023

Burnt area
3,232ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
27days
26 Mar 2023 – 21 Apr 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
26 Mar
2023
Heat detections
262
in a single hotspot: 248 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Average daily power
84MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Mar21 Apr
21 Apr 2023

How it evolved, day by day

26 Mar 2023 · 17 MW · 5 27 Mar 2023 · 6 MW · 1 30 Mar 2023 · 2 MW · 2 31 Mar 2023 · 535 MW · 21 1 Apr 2023 · 151 MW · 30 2 Apr 2023 · 438 MW · 16 3 Apr 2023 · 179 MW · 9 4 Apr 2023 · 70 MW · 24 5 Apr 2023 · 42 MW · 20 6 Apr 2023 · 24 MW · 6 7 Apr 2023 · 5 MW · 3 8 Apr 2023 · 112 MW · 19 9 Apr 2023 · 163 MW · 25 10 Apr 2023 · 23 MW · 21 11 Apr 2023 · 41 MW · 3 12 Apr 2023 · 74 MW · 8 13 Apr 2023 · 12 MW · 2 14 Apr 2023 · 45 MW · 12 15 Apr 2023 · 73 MW · 11 16 Apr 2023 · 31 MW · 8 17 Apr 2023 · 5 MW · 1 18 Apr 2023 · 9 MW · 2 19 Apr 2023 · 4 MW · 1 20 Apr 2023 · 7 MW · 5 21 Apr 2023 · 43 MW · 7
26 Mar 31 Mar 1 Apr 5 Apr 9 Apr 13 Apr 17 Apr 21 Apr

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

The weather it burned in

42°high
50km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.2 mm on 28 Apr.

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 2% of the area of London (32 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. Candelaria 9,812 inhabitants where it started
    3,249 ha reached on 26 Mar
    0.6 %

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.

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)
26 Mar 39.4 °C 27 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Mar 39.2 °C 28 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Mar 38.5 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Mar 37.1 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
30 Mar 35.6 °C 32 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
31 Mar 36.9 °C 30 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
1 Apr 38.2 °C 28 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
2 Apr 37.7 °C 30 % 47 km/h 0.1 mm High 38
3 Apr 39.2 °C 26 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Apr 39.9 °C 24 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Apr 39.9 °C 27 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Apr 39.4 °C 28 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Apr 37.4 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Apr 37.7 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Apr 38.4 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Apr 36.9 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Apr 36.7 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Apr 36.9 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Apr 37.2 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 39
14 Apr 40.5 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Apr 41.6 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
16 Apr 39.9 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 45
17 Apr 35.2 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.8 mm High 30
18 Apr 36.0 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
19 Apr 37.6 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 Apr 39.1 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Apr 39.7 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Apr after 40.2 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Apr after 40.1 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Apr after 37.8 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Apr after 39.2 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 43
26 Apr after 40.3 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
27 Apr after 41.5 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
28 Apr after 40.1 °C 30 % 30 km/h 2.2 mm High 27

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Mar 2023
After · 28 Apr 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 17 April 2023 the air beside the fire reached 108 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 44: 2.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak108 µg/m³
Days over the guideline7 days
PM10156 µg/m³
Optical depth1.53
28293031123456789101112131415161718
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 · 262Every 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 Candelaria fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 March 2023 to 21 April 2023 (27 days). The perimeter dates it from 30 March 2023 to 15 April 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,232 hectares (32.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Candelaria (3,249 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.6 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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 · 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 30 March 2023 to 15 April 2023. 262 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.

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.