Skip to content
worldfires
MX · Mexico · →

Ensenada fire, October 2020 Ensenada

Out · last detection 5 Oct 2020, 09:01 UTC

The fire started on 2 October 2020 in Ensenada, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,361 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 31th largest in Baja California since 2016 (of 57 with a page). Number 113 in Mexico in 2020, of 243.

Burnt area
2,361ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
2 Oct 2020 – 5 Oct 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
2 Oct
2020
Heat detections
76
in a single hotspot: 250 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Oct 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Oct5 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

2345

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
31km/h · peak gust
13%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
    2,397 ha reached on 2 Oct
    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.

Official record

According to CONAFOR, this fire started on 3 October 2020 and burned 884 ha (the satellite measured 2,361 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)
2 Oct 29.0 °C 17 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Oct 26.2 °C 25 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Oct 29.6 °C 13 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
5 Oct 29.9 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Oct after 27.7 °C 21 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Oct after 24.9 °C 40 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
8 Oct after 22.3 °C 59 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
9 Oct after 22.8 °C 51 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
10 Oct after 22.4 °C 50 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
11 Oct after 23.2 °C 46 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
12 Oct after 27.7 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
13 Oct after 30.2 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Oct after 24.7 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Oct after 25.7 °C 38 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 30

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Sept 2020
After · 12 Oct 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 · 76Every 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 2 October 2020 and 5 October 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 2,361 hectares (23.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ensenada (2,397 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.9 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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
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.