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Champotón fire, May 2019 Champotón

Out · last detection 10 May 2019, 19:11 UTC

The fire started on 3 May 2019 in Champotón, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,786 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 84th largest in Campeche since 2016 (of 137 with a page). Number 284 in Mexico in 2019, of 364.

Burnt area
1,786ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
3 May 2019 – 10 May 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
3 May
2019
Heat detections
54
in a single hotspot: 154 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
867MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 May 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 May10 May

How it evolved, day by day

3467810

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
49km/h · peak gust
50%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 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. Champotón 15,297 inhabitants where it started
    1,796 ha reached on 27 Apr
    0.3 %

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)
3 May 34.0 °C 51 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
4 May 33.8 °C 53 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
5 May 33.0 °C 61 % 38 km/h 1.7 mm Moderate 15
6 May 33.1 °C 60 % 35 km/h 3.6 mm Low 10
7 May 34.5 °C 51 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
8 May 35.2 °C 51 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
9 May 36.4 °C 50 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 May 35.8 °C 50 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 May after 34.5 °C 54 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 May after 33.9 °C 58 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
13 May after 34.4 °C 55 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
14 May after 35.9 °C 41 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 May after 33.2 °C 57 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
16 May after 33.3 °C 53 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
17 May after 33.9 °C 53 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
18 May after 34.4 °C 53 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
19 May after 35.2 °C 51 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 May after 35.4 °C 45 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Apr 2019
After · 17 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 · 54Every 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 Champotón fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 May 2019 and 10 May 2019: 8 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 1,786 hectares (17.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Champotón (1,796 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 50 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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.