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Ensenada fire, June 2020 Ensenada

Out · last detection 12 Jun 2020, 21:14 UTC

The fire started on 10 June 2020 in Ensenada, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,668 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 28th largest in Baja California since 2016 (of 57 with a page). Number 92 in Mexico in 2020, of 243.

Burnt area
2,668ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
10 Jun 2020 – 12 Jun 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
10 Jun
2020
Heat detections
56
in a single hotspot: 247 MW
Danger at start
69
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Jun 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Jun12 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

101112

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
46km/h · peak gust
2%lowest humidity

It had gone 59 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. Ensenada where it started
    2,681 ha reached on 10 Jun
    0.0 %

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)
10 Jun 35.4 °C 2 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
11 Jun 30.7 °C 8 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
12 Jun 29.3 °C 19 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
13 Jun after 28.6 °C 23 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
14 Jun after 25.9 °C 32 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Jun after 24.5 °C 45 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Jun after 24.7 °C 42 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Jun after 25.5 °C 42 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Jun after 24.7 °C 45 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Jun after 24.5 °C 45 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Jun after 24.0 °C 45 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Jun after 25.7 °C 47 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
22 Jun after 27.7 °C 41 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Jun 2020
After · 19 Jun 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 · 56Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ensenada fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 June 2020 and 12 June 2020: 3 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 2,668 hectares (26.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ensenada (2,681 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 2 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 69, class Extreme.
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.