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Ocampo fire, March 2022 Ocampo, Matamoros

Out · last detection 4 Apr 2022, 19:39 UTC

The fire started on 21 March 2022 in Ocampo, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,843 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 66th largest in Durango since 2016 (of 239 with a page). Number 47 in Mexico in 2022, of 232.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ocampo · 2017San Bernardo · 2021

Burnt area
3,843ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
21 Mar 2022 – 4 Apr 2022
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
21 Mar
2022
Heat detections
197
in a single hotspot: 108 MW
Danger at start
65
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
131MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Mar4 Apr
4 Apr 2022

How it evolved, day by day

21 Mar 2022 · 35 MW · 3 22 Mar 2022 · 167 MW · 34 23 Mar 2022 · 47 MW · 9 24 Mar 2022 · 12 MW · 2 26 Mar 2022 · 59 MW · 9 27 Mar 2022 · 36 MW · 7 28 Mar 2022 · 30 MW · 5 29 Mar 2022 · 640 MW · 17 30 Mar 2022 · 194 MW · 39 31 Mar 2022 · 103 MW · 11 1 Apr 2022 · 11 MW · 2 2 Apr 2022 · 136 MW · 11 3 Apr 2022 · 272 MW · 22 4 Apr 2022 · 95 MW · 26
21 Mar 23 Mar 26 Mar 28 Mar 29 Mar 30 Mar 1 Apr 3 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

27°high
86km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 46 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 2.4% of the area of London (38 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. Ocampo where it started
    3,004 ha reached on 21 Mar
    0.8 %
  2. Matamoros
    859 ha reached on 21 Mar
    0.7 %

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 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 2,926 ha (the satellite measured 3,843 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 2,262 ha 2 664 ha
22 Mar6 Apr
cause unknown or not published
  1. 1 Ocampo P.P. Rancho Las Bayas / Orestes Pereyra 22 March 2022 2,262 ha · extinguished on 6 April 2022 · cause: unknown
  2. 2 Matamoros Ej. Rancho de Borjas, Ej. Rancho Peinado 22 March 2022 664 ha · extinguished on 7 April 2022 · cause: unknown

Total according to CONAFOR: 2,926 ha, 76 % of the 3,843 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)
21 Mar 19.5 °C 12 % 86 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
22 Mar 19.5 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Mar 14.7 °C 27 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Mar 18.6 °C 11 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Mar 22.8 °C 12 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
26 Mar 23.5 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Mar 26.0 °C 11 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Mar 26.5 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
29 Mar 25.6 °C 14 % 81 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
30 Mar 22.1 °C 12 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
31 Mar 23.2 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
1 Apr 25.6 °C 11 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Apr 24.8 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Apr 27.0 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
4 Apr 26.3 °C 12 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
5 Apr after 24.2 °C 10 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Apr after 25.5 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Apr after 25.3 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Apr after 22.9 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Apr after 25.3 °C 22 % 49 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 46
10 Apr after 23.6 °C 15 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
11 Apr after 24.3 °C 17 % 58 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 52
12 Apr after 25.4 °C 15 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
13 Apr after 25.4 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
14 Apr after 27.1 °C 12 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Mar 2022
After · 11 Apr 2022

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 · 197Every 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 Ocampo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 March 2022 and 4 April 2022: 15 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 3,843 hectares (38.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ocampo (3,004 ha, 0.8 %); Matamoros (859 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.0 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 86 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 67, 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 · 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
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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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 197 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with CONAFOR: 2,926 official ha against 3,843 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 2020, 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.