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Madera fire, April 2017 Madera

Out · last detection 7 May 2017, 19:58 UTC

The fire started on 22 April 2017 in Madera, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,828 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality. According to CONAFOR, it was detected on 22 April 2017 and declared extinguished on 7 May 2017.

It is the 15th largest in Chihuahua since 2016 (of 235 with a page). Number 17 in Mexico in 2017, of 375.

Burnt area
11,828ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
22 Apr 2017 – 7 May 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
22 Apr
2017
Heat detections
1,006
in a single hotspot: 93 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
6.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 May 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Apr7 May

How it evolved, day by day

2223242526272829301234567

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
85km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 30 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 9 May.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Madera where it started
    11,828 ha reached on 19 Apr
    1.4 %

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.

Official record

According to CONAFOR, this fire started on 22 April 2017 and burned 10,220 ha (the satellite measured 11,828 ha).

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)
19 Apr 30.2 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Apr 28.5 °C 17 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Apr 28.4 °C 15 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Apr 29.7 °C 14 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Apr 28.0 °C 26 % 51 km/h 1.1 mm High 28
24 Apr 26.3 °C 19 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
25 Apr 24.2 °C 25 % 85 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
26 Apr 23.9 °C 31 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Apr 25.8 °C 31 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
28 Apr 23.7 °C 35 % 76 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Apr 16.8 °C 48 % 73 km/h 3.3 mm Low 7
30 Apr 23.1 °C 17 % 43 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 19
1 May 26.4 °C 15 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
2 May 26.7 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
3 May 27.9 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 May 29.7 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 May 29.5 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.7 mm High 28
6 May 28.2 °C 18 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 May 24.2 °C 24 % 62 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 40
8 May after 23.7 °C 27 % 67 km/h 0.9 mm High 31
9 May after 18.5 °C 33 % 66 km/h 1.6 mm Moderate 15

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Apr 2017
After · 14 May 2017

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 · 1,006Every 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 Madera fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 April 2017 and 7 May 2017: 16 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter. According to CONAFOR, it was detected on 22 April 2017 and declared extinguished on 7 May 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 11,828 hectares (118.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Madera (11,828 ha, 1.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.2 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 85 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.