Skip to content
worldfires
MX · Mexico · →

Escárcega fire, April 2022 Escárcega

Out · last detection 20 Apr 2022, 19:36 UTC

The fire started on 16 April 2022 in Escárcega, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,293 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 50th largest in Campeche since 2016 (of 137 with a page). Number 112 in Mexico in 2022, of 235.

Burnt area
2,293ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
16 Apr 2022 – 20 Apr 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
16 Apr
2022
Heat detections
74
in a single hotspot: 95 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Apr 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Apr20 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

1617181920

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
43km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.0 mm on 26 Apr.

This area had burned before

51% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 481 ha in 2016, 88 ha in 2018, 1,161 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,170 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Escárcega 59,923 inhabitants where it started
    2,305 ha reached on 16 Apr
    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)
16 Apr 39.3 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Apr 39.4 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Apr 40.0 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Apr 37.5 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Apr 38.6 °C 27 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Apr after 37.0 °C 35 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 39
22 Apr after 37.0 °C 33 % 43 km/h 4.1 mm Moderate 16
23 Apr after 36.5 °C 36 % 42 km/h 3.0 mm Moderate 16
24 Apr after 38.4 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.3 mm High 29
25 Apr after 38.2 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.4 mm High 30
26 Apr after 37.2 °C 36 % 30 km/h 6.0 mm Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Apr 2022
After · 27 Apr 2022

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 · 74Every 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 16 April 2022 and 20 April 2022: 5 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 2,293 hectares (22.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Escárcega (2,305 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.0 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 43 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.

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.