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Madera fire, 18 June 2023 Madera

Out · last detection 29 Jun 2023, 20:25 UTC

The fire started on 18 June 2023 in Madera, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,242 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 67th largest in Chihuahua since 2016 (of 235 with a page). Number 62 in Mexico in 2023, of 286.

Burnt area
4,242ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
18 Jun 2023 – 28 Jun 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
18 Jun
2023
Heat detections
282
in a single hotspot: 102 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Jun 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jun28 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

1820212223242526272829

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
54km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 30 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.4 mm on 8 Jul.

This area had burned before

41% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,727 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Madera where it started
    4,274 ha reached on 18 Jun
    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 18 June 2023 and burned 2,484 ha (the satellite measured 4,242 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)
18 Jun 30.1 °C 17 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Jun 29.8 °C 21 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Jun 31.1 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 44
21 Jun 31.4 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
22 Jun 32.4 °C 16 % 53 km/h 0.7 mm Very high 45
23 Jun 32.5 °C 16 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Jun 31.9 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Jun 32.7 °C 16 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Jun 34.5 °C 16 % 36 km/h 1.2 mm High 33
27 Jun 31.8 °C 23 % 35 km/h 2.2 mm Moderate 20
28 Jun 29.8 °C 36 % 29 km/h 15.5 mm Very low 3
29 Jun after 29.0 °C 35 % 36 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 13
30 Jun after 27.5 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
1 Jul after 30.2 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
2 Jul after 31.1 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
3 Jul after 30.5 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.9 mm High 24
4 Jul after 29.6 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.2 mm High 26
5 Jul after 32.6 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Jul after 32.5 °C 22 % 23 km/h 0.6 mm High 30
7 Jul after 32.2 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
8 Jul after 31.5 °C 30 % 30 km/h 5.4 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Jun 2023
After · 5 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
1617181920212223242526272829301
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 · 282Every 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 18 June 2023 and 28 June 2023: 11 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 4,242 hectares (42.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Madera (4,274 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 54 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.

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.