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Ensenada fire, 12 July 2020 Ensenada

Out · last detection 21 Jul 2020, 09:25 UTC

The fire started on 12 July 2020 in Ensenada, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,007 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 26th largest in Baja California since 2016 (of 57 with a page). Number 77 in Mexico in 2020, of 243.

Burnt area
3,007ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
12 Jul 2020 – 21 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
12 Jul
2020
Heat detections
144
in a single hotspot: 415 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
7.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Jul 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Jul21 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1213141518192021

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
60km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months 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
    3,056 ha reached on 12 Jul
    0.1 %

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 13 July 2020 and burned 1,341 ha (the satellite measured 3,007 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)
12 Jul 36.5 °C 16 % 40 km/h 1.3 mm Very high 44
13 Jul 31.5 °C 23 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Jul 32.1 °C 16 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
15 Jul 30.9 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Jul 30.7 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Jul 31.8 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Jul 33.6 °C 13 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
19 Jul 34.5 °C 13 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
20 Jul 33.1 °C 10 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
21 Jul 31.8 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
22 Jul after 30.4 °C 15 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
23 Jul after 28.8 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Jul after 28.5 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
25 Jul after 30.5 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Jul after 30.6 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
27 Jul after 30.9 °C 29 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
28 Jul after 33.0 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
29 Jul after 33.2 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
30 Jul after 35.7 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
31 Jul after 36.5 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Jul 2020
After · 28 Jul 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 · 144Every 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 Ensenada fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 July 2020 and 21 July 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 3,007 hectares (30.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ensenada (3,056 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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
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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.