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Madera fire, 14 June 2023 Madera, Nácori Chico

Out · last detection 4 Jul 2023, 20:31 UTC

The fire started on 14 June 2023 in Madera, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,944 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 11th largest in Chihuahua since 2016 (of 235 with a page). Number 6 in Mexico in 2023, of 286.

Burnt area
13,944ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
14 Jun 2023 – 3 Jul 2023
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
14 Jun
2023
Heat detections
1,081
in a single hotspot: 417 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
10.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Jul 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Jun3 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

14151617181920212223242526272829301234

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
64km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 26 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 9.5 mm on 9 Jul.

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
    14,024 ha reached on 14 Jun
    1.6 %
  2. Nácori Chico
    6 ha
    0.0 %

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 13 June 2023 and burned 10,984 ha (the satellite measured 13,944 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)
14 Jun 29.8 °C 13 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Jun 31.4 °C 13 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
16 Jun 31.6 °C 17 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Jun 31.9 °C 13 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Jun 32.4 °C 17 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
19 Jun 31.8 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Jun 33.5 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 45
21 Jun 33.8 °C 18 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
22 Jun 34.7 °C 16 % 50 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 50
23 Jun 34.9 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
24 Jun 34.1 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Jun 35.2 °C 14 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Jun 36.7 °C 16 % 35 km/h 1.4 mm High 35
27 Jun 33.5 °C 25 % 38 km/h 1.4 mm High 29
28 Jun 31.4 °C 37 % 32 km/h 11.7 mm Very low 5
29 Jun 31.0 °C 34 % 39 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 18
30 Jun 29.5 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
1 Jul 32.3 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Jul 32.8 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Jul 31.6 °C 30 % 34 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 21
4 Jul after 30.8 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
5 Jul after 33.4 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.5 mm High 34
6 Jul after 34.3 °C 23 % 27 km/h 1.7 mm High 23
7 Jul after 33.7 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
8 Jul after 31.8 °C 34 % 30 km/h 4.9 mm Low 6
9 Jul after 29.8 °C 46 % 30 km/h 9.5 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Jun 2023
After · 10 Jul 2023

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 26 June 2023 the air beside the fire reached 93 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 57: 3.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak93 µg/m³
Days over the guideline8 days
PM10134 µg/m³
Optical depth1.49
12131415161718192021222324252627282930123456
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 1,081Every 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 14 June 2023 and 3 July 2023: 20 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 13,944 hectares (139.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Madera (14,024 ha, 1.6 %); Nácori Chico (6 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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

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.