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Otáez fire, April 2022 Otáez

Out · last detection 5 May 2022, 19:57 UTC

The fire started on 19 April 2022 in Otáez, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,103 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 18th largest in Durango since 2016 (of 241 with a page). Number 15 in Mexico in 2022, of 235.

Burnt area
7,103ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
17days
19 Apr 2022 – 5 May 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
19 Apr
2022
Heat detections
408
in a single hotspot: 42 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 May 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Apr5 May

How it evolved, day by day

19202122232425262728293012345

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
61km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 mm on 10 May.

This area had burned before

31% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,183 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Otáez where it started
    7,127 ha reached on 19 Apr
    4.2 %

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.

Official record

According to CONAFOR, this fire started on 19 April 2022 and burned 5,658 ha (the satellite measured 7,103 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)
19 Apr 27.5 °C 28 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Apr 26.4 °C 28 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
21 Apr 27.5 °C 29 % 49 km/h 0.4 mm High 34
22 Apr 26.9 °C 27 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Apr 26.2 °C 24 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Apr 25.4 °C 26 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Apr 27.1 °C 13 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Apr 25.8 °C 39 % 36 km/h 4.9 mm Very low 4
27 Apr 25.9 °C 25 % 52 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 17
28 Apr 25.9 °C 24 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
29 Apr 25.8 °C 17 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
30 Apr 27.4 °C 20 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
1 May 25.2 °C 25 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 May 26.4 °C 18 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
3 May 26.7 °C 20 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
4 May 26.4 °C 24 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
5 May 26.9 °C 26 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 May after 28.5 °C 25 % 53 km/h 0.3 mm High 34
7 May after 27.3 °C 23 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 May after 28.4 °C 17 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
9 May after 29.3 °C 21 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
10 May after 29.0 °C 21 % 53 km/h 1.8 mm Moderate 21

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Apr 2022
After · 12 May 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 · 408Every 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 Otáez fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 April 2022 and 5 May 2022: 17 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 7,103 hectares (71.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Otáez (7,127 ha, 4.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.5 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 61 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.

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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.

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.