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Mezquital fire, 3 April 2017 Mezquital

Out · last detection 22 Apr 2017, 08:25 UTC

The fire started on 3 April 2017 in Mezquital, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,481 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 16th largest in Durango since 2016 (of 239 with a page). Number 38 in Mexico in 2017, of 374.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Mezquital · 2023Valparaíso · 2023Mezquital · 2022Del Nayar · 2019

Burnt area
6,481ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
3 Apr 2017 – 22 Apr 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
3 Apr
2017
Heat detections
416
in a single hotspot: 45 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
145MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Apr22 Apr
22 Apr 2017

How it evolved, day by day

7 Apr 2017 · 11 MW · 1 10 Apr 2017 · 333 MW · 18 11 Apr 2017 · 414 MW · 68 12 Apr 2017 · 136 MW · 43 13 Apr 2017 · 61 MW · 26 14 Apr 2017 · 295 MW · 46 15 Apr 2017 · 129 MW · 32 16 Apr 2017 · 122 MW · 26 17 Apr 2017 · 77 MW · 30 18 Apr 2017 · 16 MW · 14 19 Apr 2017 · 175 MW · 43 20 Apr 2017 · 200 MW · 33 21 Apr 2017 · 53 MW · 28 22 Apr 2017 · 11 MW · 8
7 Apr 11 Apr 13 Apr 15 Apr 17 Apr 19 Apr 21 Apr

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
58km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 25 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 4.1% of the area of London (65 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Mezquital where it started
    6,487 ha reached on 7 Apr
    0.8 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2015
Built-up area0.19 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.19 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

Official record

Several official records match this area

According to CONAFOR, 3 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 2,949 ha (the satellite measured 6,481 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

CONAFOR records each fire that started at a different time or place separately; the satellite sees a single burned area, so this page groups them together. The numbers on the map show where each one started.

When each one burned

1 15 ha 2 200 ha 3 2,734 ha
6 Apr24 Apr
negligence cause unknown or not published
  1. 1 Mezquital MIRASOLES 6 April 2017 15 ha · extinguished on 7 April 2017 · cause: negligence
  2. 2 Mezquital SAN LUCAS DE JALPA 7 April 2017 200 ha · extinguished on 10 April 2017 · cause: negligence
  3. 3 Mezquital COM. HUAZAMOTA, COM. SAN ANTONIO DE PADUA, COM. SAN LUCAS DE JALPA 10 April 2017 2,734 ha · extinguished on 25 April 2017 · cause: unknown

Total according to CONAFOR: 2,949 ha, 46 % of the 6,481 ha in the satellite perimeter.

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)
3 Apr 25.8 °C 14 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Apr 25.8 °C 14 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Apr 30.3 °C 11 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 Apr 29.1 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Apr 27.5 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Apr 30.1 °C 18 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Apr 29.3 °C 14 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Apr 31.0 °C 14 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Apr 29.4 °C 17 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Apr 29.2 °C 18 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Apr 28.4 °C 15 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Apr 27.4 °C 13 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
15 Apr 27.2 °C 15 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
16 Apr 27.4 °C 16 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 Apr 26.3 °C 16 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
18 Apr 27.8 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Apr 30.6 °C 16 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Apr 30.3 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Apr 28.6 °C 25 % 38 km/h 1.4 mm High 23
22 Apr 30.3 °C 28 % 36 km/h 2.4 mm Moderate 12
23 Apr after 30.8 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
24 Apr after 26.8 °C 33 % 43 km/h 0.5 mm High 30
25 Apr after 25.5 °C 21 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
26 Apr after 26.6 °C 19 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Apr after 27.4 °C 18 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Apr after 26.7 °C 14 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
29 Apr after 26.3 °C 22 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Apr after 28.5 °C 17 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
1 May after 30.5 °C 12 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
2 May after 28.6 °C 22 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Mar 2017
After · 29 Apr 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 · 416Every 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 Mezquital fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 3 April 2017 to 22 April 2017 (20 days). The perimeter dates it from 10 April 2017 to 22 April 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,481 hectares (64.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mezquital (6,487 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.0 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 10 April 2017 to 22 April 2017. 416 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with CONAFOR: 2,949 official ha against 6,481 ha of perimeter; similar, but with reservations.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2015, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.