Huachinera fire, June 2017 Huachinera, Nácori Chico, Bacadéhuachi
The fire started on 8 June 2017 in Huachinera, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,445 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 9th largest in Sonora since 2016 (of 83 with a page). Number 15 in Mexico in 2017, of 374.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 12,445ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 16days
- 8 Jun 2017 – 23 Jun 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 8 Jun
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 876
- in a single hotspot: 291 MW
- Danger at start
- 25
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 526MW
- 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 one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 24 Jun.
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
-
Huachinera where it started10,387 ha reached on 8 Jun8.6 %
-
1,955 ha reached on 16 Jun0.7 %
-
138 ha reached on 21 Jun0.1 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 Jun | 29.0 °C | 31 % | 35 km/h | 0.7 mm | High 25 |
| 9 Jun | 29.4 °C | 27 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 10 Jun | 29.6 °C | 20 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 11 Jun | 28.1 °C | 24 % | 60 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 12 Jun | 29.2 °C | 21 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 13 Jun | 31.7 °C | 12 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 14 Jun | 33.9 °C | 12 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 15 Jun | 34.1 °C | 11 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 16 Jun | 32.9 °C | 12 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 17 Jun | 32.2 °C | 15 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 18 Jun | 34.9 °C | 12 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 19 Jun | 36.6 °C | 14 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 20 Jun | 36.5 °C | 19 % | 41 km/h | 0.9 mm | Very high 39 |
| 21 Jun | 36.4 °C | 17 % | 42 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 41 |
| 22 Jun | 30.8 °C | 37 % | 41 km/h | 3.7 mm | Low 10 |
| 23 Jun | 33.0 °C | 25 % | 37 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 30 |
| 24 Jun after | 35.8 °C | 20 % | 63 km/h | 1.7 mm | High 30 |
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 · 876Every 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 Huachinera fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 8 June 2017 to 23 June 2017 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 June 2017 to 23 June 2017.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 12,445 hectares (124.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Huachinera (10,387 ha, 8.6 %); Nácori Chico (1,955 ha, 0.7 %); Bacadéhuachi (138 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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 · 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 11 June 2017 to 23 June 2017. 876 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.