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Carmen fire, 24 May 2016 Carmen

Out · last detection 29 May 2016, 18:47 UTC

The fire started on 24 May 2016 in Carmen, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,163 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

Number 16 in Mexico in 2016, of 208.

Burnt area
6,163ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
24 May 2016 – 29 May 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
24 May
2016
Heat detections
159
in a single hotspot: 118 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 May 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 May29 May

How it evolved, day by day

242526272829

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
48km/h · peak gust
41%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.0 mm on 4 Jun.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Carmen 248,845 inhabitants where it started
    6,194 ha reached on 22 May
    0.7 %

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 25 May 2016 and burned 3,812 ha (the satellite measured 6,163 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)
22 May 36.2 °C 45 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
23 May 36.7 °C 45 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
24 May 37.5 °C 43 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 May 36.9 °C 45 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 May 36.5 °C 44 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
27 May 36.3 °C 45 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 May 37.0 °C 41 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 May 35.2 °C 48 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 May after 35.2 °C 51 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
31 May after 36.0 °C 45 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Jun after 36.2 °C 45 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Jun after 35.8 °C 44 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 Jun after 35.4 °C 49 % 39 km/h 7.5 mm Low 10
4 Jun after 32.2 °C 64 % 30 km/h 2.0 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 May 2016
After · 5 Jun 2016

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 · 159Every 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 Carmen fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 May 2016 and 29 May 2016: 6 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 6,163 hectares (61.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Carmen (6,194 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 41 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, class 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
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.