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Madera fire, May 2017 Madera

Out · last detection 15 Jun 2017, 21:08 UTC

The fire started on 29 May 2017 in Madera, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,472 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 60th largest in Chihuahua since 2016 (of 235 with a page). Number 84 in Mexico in 2017, of 375.

Burnt area
4,472ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
18days
29 May 2017 – 15 Jun 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
29 May
2017
Heat detections
274
in a single hotspot: 68 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Jun 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 May15 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

293031123456891011121415

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
54km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 23 Jun.

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
    4,488 ha reached on 29 May
    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.

Official record

According to CONAFOR, this fire started on 29 May 2017 and burned 2,308 ha (the satellite measured 4,472 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

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)
29 May 31.6 °C 14 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
30 May 28.6 °C 19 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
31 May 29.9 °C 19 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
1 Jun 27.5 °C 17 % 51 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 46
2 Jun 30.6 °C 15 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
3 Jun 30.9 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Jun 32.8 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 Jun 33.0 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 41
6 Jun 33.0 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 41
7 Jun 32.5 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.9 mm High 30
8 Jun 29.6 °C 33 % 41 km/h 3.0 mm Low 11
9 Jun 30.5 °C 30 % 39 km/h 0.1 mm High 25
10 Jun 30.7 °C 24 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Jun 29.8 °C 26 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
12 Jun 30.8 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Jun 33.2 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Jun 35.2 °C 13 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Jun 35.2 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
16 Jun after 34.2 °C 12 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
17 Jun after 33.1 °C 17 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Jun after 35.6 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Jun after 37.8 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Jun after 37.5 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 44
21 Jun after 37.2 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Jun after 30.5 °C 41 % 40 km/h 0.9 mm High 23
23 Jun after 33.0 °C 35 % 42 km/h 2.4 mm Moderate 15

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 May 2017
After · 22 Jun 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 · 274Every 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 29 May 2017 and 15 June 2017: 18 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 4,472 hectares (44.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Madera (4,488 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.