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Concordia fire, April 2018 Concordia

Out · last detection 1 May 2018, 21:06 UTC

The fire started on 17 April 2018 in Concordia, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,612 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 74th largest in Sinaloa since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 213 in Mexico in 2018, of 235.

The power measured by the satellite is low (21.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
1,612ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
17 Apr 2018 – 30 Apr 2018
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
17 Apr
2018
Heat detections
77
in a single hotspot: 21 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
331MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 May 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Apr30 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

1718192021232526272829301

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
44km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.0 mm on 6 May.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Concordia where it started
    1,620 ha reached on 17 Apr
    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.

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)
17 Apr 31.2 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Apr 31.6 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Apr 30.8 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 Apr 29.3 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Apr 29.1 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Apr 29.9 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Apr 30.4 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Apr 30.4 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Apr 31.2 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Apr 30.7 °C 29 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Apr 30.3 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Apr 29.0 °C 37 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
29 Apr 29.2 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.2 mm High 32
30 Apr 30.4 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
1 May after 31.7 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 May after 30.9 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 May after 30.9 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 May after 32.3 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 May after 34.6 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 May after 32.4 °C 36 % 38 km/h 2.0 mm Moderate 15

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Apr 2018
After · 7 May 2018

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 · 77Every 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 Concordia fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 April 2018 and 30 April 2018: 14 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 1,612 hectares (16.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Concordia (1,620 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.6 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.