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Escárcega fire, 9 May 2016 Escárcega

Out · last detection 2 Jun 2016, 19:12 UTC

The fire started on 9 May 2016 in Escárcega, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,270 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 54th largest in Campeche since 2016 (of 137 with a page). Number 99 in Mexico in 2016, of 208.

Burnt area
2,270ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
24days
9 May 2016 – 1 Jun 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
9 May
2016
Heat detections
201
in a single hotspot: 80 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Jun 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 May1 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

91011121314151618202223242526272829303112

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

The weather it burned in

42°high
47km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.2 mm on 3 Jun.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Escárcega 59,923 inhabitants where it started
    2,284 ha reached on 9 May
    0.5 %

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)
9 May 39.8 °C 30 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 May 38.6 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 May 39.2 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
12 May 38.1 °C 38 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 May 37.7 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.3 mm High 37
14 May 36.5 °C 40 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 May 39.5 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 May 40.0 °C 27 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
17 May 40.7 °C 39 % 42 km/h 0.7 mm High 35
18 May 41.7 °C 36 % 33 km/h 6.4 mm Moderate 17
19 May 39.4 °C 38 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 May 39.3 °C 39 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
21 May 39.1 °C 38 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
22 May 39.2 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 May 40.3 °C 31 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 May 41.2 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 May 41.5 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 May 40.1 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
27 May 39.0 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 May 41.6 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 May 40.5 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
30 May 38.9 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 May 37.9 °C 36 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
1 Jun 40.3 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 Jun after 38.5 °C 31 % 39 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 40
3 Jun after 39.6 °C 34 % 36 km/h 4.2 mm Moderate 19

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 May 2016
After · 8 Jun 2016

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 · 201Every 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 Escárcega fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 May 2016 and 1 June 2016: 24 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 2,270 hectares (22.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Escárcega (2,284 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.7 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.

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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.