Skip to content
worldfires
MX · Mexico · →

Ensenada fire, 11 August 2020 Ensenada

Out · last detection 14 Aug 2020, 21:34 UTC

The fire started on 11 August 2020 in Ensenada, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,058 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 19th largest in Baja California since 2016 (of 57 with a page). Number 43 in Mexico in 2020, of 243.

Burnt area
4,058ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
11 Aug 2020 – 14 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
11 Aug
2020
Heat detections
200
in a single hotspot: 203 MW
Danger at start
58
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
7.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Aug14 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

11121314

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
46km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 42 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
    4,154 ha reached on 11 Aug
    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 11 August 2020 and burned 8,140 ha (the satellite measured 4,058 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)
11 Aug 33.5 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
12 Aug 34.5 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
13 Aug 37.0 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
14 Aug 38.0 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.8 mm Very high 44
15 Aug after 37.1 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Aug after 34.2 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Aug after 35.7 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.7 mm High 32
18 Aug after 38.7 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.2 mm High 37
19 Aug after 34.8 °C 35 % 41 km/h 0.7 mm High 31
20 Aug after 35.0 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Aug after 34.5 °C 34 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
22 Aug after 32.8 °C 41 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
23 Aug after 33.8 °C 38 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Aug after 33.5 °C 42 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Aug 2020
After · 21 Aug 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 · 200Every 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 11 August 2020 and 14 August 2020: 4 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 4,058 hectares (40.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ensenada (4,154 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.0 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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.