How long did the Ensenada fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 October 2023 and 1 November 2023: 3 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter. According to CONAFOR, it was detected on 30 October 2023 and declared extinguished on 4 November 2023.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,988 hectares (29.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Ensenada (3,046 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 27.3 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.

MX · Mexico · 2023-10-30 → 2023-11-01

Ensenada fire, October 2023 Ensenada

Out · last detection 1 Nov 2023, 10:04 UTC

The fire started on 30 October 2023 in Ensenada, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,988 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality. According to CONAFOR, it was detected on 30 October 2023 and declared extinguished on 4 November 2023.

It is the 27th largest in Baja California since 2016 (of 57 with a page). Number 104 in Mexico in 2023, of 286.

Burnt area: 2,988ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 3days; 30 Oct 2023 – 1 Nov 2023
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 30 Oct; 2023
Heat detections: 149; in a single hotspot: 54 MW
Danger at start: 40; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 2.2GW; sum of detected power

Play back 1 Nov 2023

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Oct1 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

30311

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

The weather it burned in

27°high

33km/h · peak gust

5%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 58 ha in 2019.

58 ha Ensenada fire, October 2019 2,172 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Ensenada where it started

3,046 ha reached on 30 Oct

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 30 October 2023 and burned 3,301 ha (the satellite measured 2,988 ha).

Ensenada San Francisquito 30 October 2023 3,301 ha · extinguished on 4 November 2023 · cause: unknown

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	Danger (FWI)
30 Oct	25.5 °C	5 %	30 km/h	Very high 40
31 Oct	26.9 °C	6 %	26 km/h	Very high 40
1 Nov	26.8 °C	9 %	30 km/h	Very high 40
2 Nov after	27.3 °C	8 %	33 km/h	Very high 41
3 Nov after	26.4 °C	8 %	31 km/h	Very high 41
4 Nov after	26.8 °C	5 %	36 km/h	Very high 46
5 Nov after	28.7 °C	12 %	26 km/h	Very high 41
6 Nov after	24.1 °C	21 %	27 km/h	High 35
7 Nov after	20.8 °C	27 %	39 km/h	High 34
8 Nov after	21.3 °C	28 %	37 km/h	High 31
9 Nov after	22.7 °C	12 %	40 km/h	Very high 38
10 Nov after	24.5 °C	7 %	38 km/h	Very high 43
11 Nov after	24.5 °C	6 %	30 km/h	Very high 40
12 Nov after	24.9 °C	13 %	32 km/h	Very high 41
13 Nov after	24.4 °C	10 %	26 km/h	Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 23 Oct 2023

After · 8 Nov 2023

Before After

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 2 November 2023 the air beside the fire reached 249 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 106: 7.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak249 µg/m³

Days over the guideline4 days

PM10359 µg/m³

Optical depth1.74

WHO 15

282930311234

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 149Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Mexico ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ensenada fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 October 2023 and 1 November 2023: 3 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter. According to CONAFOR, it was detected on 30 October 2023 and declared extinguished on 4 November 2023.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,988 hectares (29.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Ensenada (3,046 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 27.3 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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

CONAFOR · Comisión Nacional Forestal ↗
CENAPRED ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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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.

Where it burned