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Othón P. Blanco fire, 5 April 2020 Othón P. Blanco

Out · last detection 5 May 2020, 06:51 UTC

The fire started on 5 April 2020 in Othón P. Blanco, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 31 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,066 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 5th largest in Quintana Roo since 2016 (of 40 with a page). Number 26 in Mexico in 2020, of 242.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Othón P. Blanco · 2016Othón P. Blanco · 2017Othón P. Blanco · 2016

Burnt area
5,066ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
31days
5 Apr 2020 – 5 May 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
5 Apr
2020
Heat detections
422
in a single hotspot: 59 MW
Danger at start
14
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
94MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Apr5 May
5 May 2020

How it evolved, day by day

5 Apr 2020 · 88 MW · 10 6 Apr 2020 · 18 MW · 6 7 Apr 2020 · 21 MW · 5 9 Apr 2020 · 3 MW · 1 11 Apr 2020 · 9 MW · 2 12 Apr 2020 · 6 MW · 2 14 Apr 2020 · 25 MW · 3 15 Apr 2020 · 33 MW · 6 16 Apr 2020 · 26 MW · 8 17 Apr 2020 · 62 MW · 18 18 Apr 2020 · 77 MW · 20 19 Apr 2020 · 25 MW · 8 20 Apr 2020 · 85 MW · 6 21 Apr 2020 · 80 MW · 9 22 Apr 2020 · 34 MW · 17 23 Apr 2020 · 18 MW · 7 24 Apr 2020 · 16 MW · 4 26 Apr 2020 · 239 MW · 31 27 Apr 2020 · 267 MW · 33 28 Apr 2020 · 155 MW · 38 29 Apr 2020 · 756 MW · 54 30 Apr 2020 · 78 MW · 18 1 May 2020 · 219 MW · 27 2 May 2020 · 78 MW · 29 3 May 2020 · 55 MW · 32 4 May 2020 · 45 MW · 16 5 May 2020 · 13 MW · 12
5 Apr 11 Apr 16 Apr 20 Apr 24 Apr 29 Apr 3 May

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
62km/h · peak gust
61%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 6 May.

This area had burned before

8% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 394 ha in 2016, 57 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 405 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.2% of the area of London (51 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. Othón P. Blanco where it started
    5,101 ha reached on 5 Apr
    0.5 %

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

According to CONAFOR, this fire started on 1 April 2020 and burned 3,000 ha (the satellite measured 5,066 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)
5 Apr 29.5 °C 63 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
6 Apr 29.7 °C 66 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
7 Apr 30.1 °C 66 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
8 Apr 29.7 °C 65 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
9 Apr 30.2 °C 67 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
10 Apr 30.4 °C 68 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
11 Apr 30.0 °C 68 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
12 Apr 30.3 °C 69 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
13 Apr 30.4 °C 69 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
14 Apr 30.5 °C 65 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
15 Apr 29.7 °C 66 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
16 Apr 30.6 °C 65 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
17 Apr 30.9 °C 63 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
18 Apr 30.8 °C 69 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
19 Apr 30.1 °C 68 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
20 Apr 30.6 °C 68 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
21 Apr 30.2 °C 71 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
22 Apr 30.5 °C 68 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
23 Apr 30.2 °C 66 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
24 Apr 30.6 °C 69 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
25 Apr 30.0 °C 77 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
26 Apr 30.7 °C 69 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
27 Apr 30.9 °C 67 % 36 km/h 1.1 mm Low 11
28 Apr 31.4 °C 71 % 39 km/h 1.0 mm Low 10
29 Apr 31.2 °C 67 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
30 Apr 30.7 °C 61 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 16
1 May 30.9 °C 69 % 31 km/h 1.3 mm Low 9
2 May 31.4 °C 61 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
3 May 30.7 °C 67 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 16
4 May 30.6 °C 70 % 37 km/h 1.5 mm Low 9
5 May 31.1 °C 71 % 37 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 12
6 May after 32.1 °C 68 % 34 km/h 1.1 mm Low 10

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Mar 2020
After · 12 May 2020

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 · 422Every 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 Othón P. Blanco fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 5 April 2020 to 5 May 2020 (31 days). The perimeter dates it from 12 April 2020 to 5 May 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,066 hectares (50.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Othón P. Blanco (5,101 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 61 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 23, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Matched to the official record from CONAFOR.

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 12 April 2020 to 5 May 2020. 422 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with CONAFOR: 3,000 official ha against 5,066 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.