Hopelchén fire, April 2017 Hopelchén, Bacalar
The fire started on 24 April 2017 in Hopelchén, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,296 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities. According to CONAFOR, it was detected on 28 April 2017 and declared extinguished on 12 May 2017.
It is the 48th largest in Campeche since 2016 (of 138 with a page). Number 194 in Mexico in 2017, of 374.
The power measured by the satellite is low (26.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 2,296ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 18days
- 24 Apr 2017 – 11 May 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 24 Apr
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 104
- in a single hotspot: 26 MW
- Danger at start
- 20
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 42MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.3 mm on 13 May.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
1,903 ha reached on 24 Apr0.2 %
-
Bacalar 12,527 inhabitants400 ha reached on 27 Apr0.1 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2015Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
Official record
According to CONAFOR, this fire started on 28 April 2017 and burned 2,259 ha (the satellite measured 2,296 ha).
- Hopelchén ChunEk 2 28 April 2017 2,259 ha · extinguished on 12 May 2017 · cause: negligence
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 Apr | 35.5 °C | 31 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 25 Apr | 38.1 °C | 31 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 26 Apr | 39.3 °C | 37 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 27 Apr | 38.5 °C | 40 % | 41 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 30 |
| 28 Apr | 37.3 °C | 42 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 29 Apr | 36.9 °C | 45 % | 62 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 30 Apr | 37.7 °C | 42 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 1 May | 37.1 °C | 40 % | 32 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 28 |
| 2 May | 36.5 °C | 44 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 3 May | 37.2 °C | 40 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 4 May | 37.9 °C | 29 % | 41 km/h | 1.7 mm | High 30 |
| 5 May | 35.3 °C | 37 % | 36 km/h | 1.6 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 6 May | 34.2 °C | 29 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 7 May | 36.0 °C | 31 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 8 May | 36.9 °C | 29 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 9 May | 36.8 °C | 29 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 10 May | 35.1 °C | 40 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 11 May | 36.2 °C | 50 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 12 May after | 36.3 °C | 43 % | 41 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 29 |
| 13 May after | 35.0 °C | 45 % | 28 km/h | 3.3 mm | Low 9 |
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.
Detections table · 104Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 6,235 haBacalarJune 2019 · 20 days · 2 km away
- 3,933 haHopelchénApril 2022 · 15 days · 2 km away
- 5,606 haHopelchén26 March 2020 · 40 days · 19 km away
- 4,082 haHopelchén12 March 2017 · 24 days · 32 km away
- 6,801 haHopelchén22 March 2020 · 35 days · 33 km away
- 7,371 haHopelchén21 March 2020 · 41 days · 35 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Hopelchén fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 24 April 2017 to 11 May 2017 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 30 April 2017 to 11 May 2017. According to CONAFOR, it was detected on 28 April 2017 and declared extinguished on 12 May 2017.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,296 hectares (23.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Hopelchén (1,903 ha, 0.2 %); Bacalar (400 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.3 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 30 April 2017 to 11 May 2017. 104 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with CONAFOR: 2,259 official ha against 2,296 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2015, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.