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Madera fire, 5 April 2018 Madera

Out · last detection 29 Apr 2018, 08:48 UTC

The fire started on 5 April 2018 in Madera, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 22,377 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 4th largest in Chihuahua since 2016 (of 235 with a page). Number 3 in Mexico in 2018, of 235.

Burnt area
22,377ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
25days
5 Apr 2018 – 29 Apr 2018
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
5 Apr
2018
Heat detections
1,818
in a single hotspot: 861 MW
Danger at start
18
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
22.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Apr 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Apr29 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

5678910111213141516171819202122232425262829

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

The weather it burned in

25°high
85km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 6 May.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 124 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Madera where it started
    22,479 ha reached on 5 Apr
    2.6 %

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, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 15,669 ha (the satellite measured 22,377 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)
5 Apr 21.5 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
6 Apr 20.8 °C 15 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
7 Apr 21.3 °C 21 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
8 Apr 21.3 °C 28 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
9 Apr 21.4 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
10 Apr 24.8 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.4 mm High 22
11 Apr 24.2 °C 19 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
12 Apr 20.5 °C 22 % 85 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Apr 16.4 °C 11 % 80 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Apr 18.5 °C 9 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
15 Apr 22.4 °C 9 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
16 Apr 21.6 °C 16 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Apr 19.7 °C 10 % 65 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Apr 21.6 °C 10 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
19 Apr 23.7 °C 9 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 Apr 19.6 °C 12 % 75 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Apr 21.0 °C 8 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Apr 20.6 °C 22 % 72 km/h 3.5 mm Low 8
23 Apr 22.8 °C 14 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
24 Apr 24.0 °C 11 % 50 km/h 0.5 mm High 30
25 Apr 23.1 °C 16 % 50 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
26 Apr 22.3 °C 20 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Apr 21.8 °C 18 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
28 Apr 22.2 °C 18 % 52 km/h 0.2 mm High 32
29 Apr 21.4 °C 22 % 57 km/h 0.9 mm High 23
30 Apr after 20.5 °C 17 % 73 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 May after 20.1 °C 10 % 82 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
2 May after 16.5 °C 19 % 94 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
3 May after 19.2 °C 17 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 May after 23.3 °C 11 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 May after 25.9 °C 17 % 52 km/h 0.6 mm High 34
6 May after 27.3 °C 17 % 44 km/h 1.0 mm High 28

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Mar 2018
After · 6 May 2018

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 · 1,818Every 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 5 April 2018 and 29 April 2018: 25 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 22,377 hectares (223.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Madera (22,479 ha, 2.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 24.8 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 85 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.