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Carmen fire, March 2020 Carmen

Out · last detection 2 Apr 2020, 20:01 UTC

The fire started on 24 March 2020 in Carmen, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,608 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

Number 223 in Mexico in 2020, of 243.

Burnt area
1,608ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
24 Mar 2020 – 2 Apr 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
24 Mar
2020
Heat detections
53
in a single hotspot: 332 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Apr 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Mar2 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

24252627282930312

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
50km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

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
    1,615 ha reached on 19 Mar
    0.2 %

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.

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)
24 Mar 38.3 °C 31 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Mar 38.6 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Mar 38.6 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Mar 40.3 °C 28 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Mar 40.3 °C 28 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Mar 39.1 °C 29 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Mar 38.2 °C 28 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Mar 38.0 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Apr 34.6 °C 51 % 40 km/h 0.4 mm High 28
2 Apr 38.4 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
3 Apr after 41.2 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Apr after 40.6 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 Apr after 39.7 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Apr after 39.1 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Apr after 39.6 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Apr after 41.4 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Apr after 41.9 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
10 Apr after 42.7 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
11 Apr after 41.3 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
12 Apr after 44.2 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Mar 2020
After · 9 Apr 2020

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 Carmen fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 March 2020 and 2 April 2020: 10 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 1,608 hectares (16.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Carmen (1,615 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.3 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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
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.