Fronteras fire, June 2025 Fronteras, Bacoachi, Cananea
The fire started on 20 June 2025 in Fronteras, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,153 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 13th largest in Sonora since 2016 (of 93 with a page). Number 8 in Mexico in 2025, of 167.
- Burnt area
- 10,153ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 13days
- 20 Jun 2025 – 2 Jul 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 20 Jun
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 865
- in a single hotspot: 235 MW
- Danger at start
- 48
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 8.5GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 12.6 mm on 3 Jul.
This area had burned before
1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 114 ha in 2017.
What happened to each town
-
Fronteras where it started9,141 ha reached on 19 Jun3.5 %
-
949 ha reached on 21 Jun0.8 %
-
105 ha reached on 21 Jun0.0 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 Jun | 34.8 °C | 8 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 20 Jun | 32.3 °C | 11 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 21 Jun | 29.0 °C | 21 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 22 Jun | 27.1 °C | 20 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 23 Jun | 28.0 °C | 16 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 24 Jun | 27.3 °C | 31 % | 41 km/h | 2.2 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 25 Jun | 27.1 °C | 22 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 26 Jun | 30.8 °C | 6 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 27 Jun | 30.3 °C | 10 % | 32 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 45 |
| 28 Jun | 30.8 °C | 10 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 29 Jun | 33.0 °C | 7 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 30 Jun | 33.2 °C | 13 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 1 Jul | 30.7 °C | 19 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 2 Jul | 27.1 °C | 33 % | 28 km/h | 10.3 mm | Very low 4 |
| 3 Jul after | 23.7 °C | 58 % | 46 km/h | 12.6 mm | Very low 1 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 30 June 2025 the air beside the fire reached 25 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
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 · 865Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Fronteras fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 June 2025 and 2 July 2025: 13 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 10,153 hectares (101.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Fronteras (9,141 ha, 3.5 %); Bacoachi (949 ha, 0.8 %); Cananea (105 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, 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
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.