Skip to content
worldfires
MX · Mexico · →

Ocosingo fire, May 2016 Ocosingo

Out · last detection 12 May 2016, 19:05 UTC

The fire started on 6 May 2016 in Ocosingo, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,505 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 262th largest in Chiapas since 2016 (of 265 with a page). Number 205 in Mexico in 2016, of 208.

Burnt area
1,505ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
6 May 2016 – 12 May 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
6 May
2016
Heat detections
73
in a single hotspot: 86 MW
Danger at start
13
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
878MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 May 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 May12 May

How it evolved, day by day

6789101112

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
36km/h · peak gust
38%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.5 mm on 13 May.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Ocosingo 234,661 inhabitants where it started
    1,513 ha reached on 6 May
    0.2 %

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.

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)
6 May 33.1 °C 45 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
7 May 34.3 °C 38 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
8 May 35.2 °C 39 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
9 May 37.2 °C 42 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
10 May 36.8 °C 42 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
11 May 37.0 °C 39 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
12 May 36.2 °C 44 % 26 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 20
13 May after 34.4 °C 53 % 25 km/h 6.5 mm Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Apr 2016
After · 19 May 2016

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 · 73Every 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 Ocosingo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 May 2016 and 12 May 2016: 7 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 1,505 hectares (15.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ocosingo (1,513 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 38 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, class 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.