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Petatlán fire, March 2019 Petatlán

Out · last detection 17 Apr 2019, 08:32 UTC

The fire started on 25 March 2019 in Petatlán, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,617 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 277th largest in Guerrero since 2016 (of 612 with a page). Number 174 in Mexico in 2019, of 364.

The power measured by the satellite is low (18.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Petatlán · 2017Zihuatanejo de Azueta · 2020Petatlán · 2019Coyuca de Catalán · 2020

Burnt area
2,617ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
24days
25 Mar 2019 – 17 Apr 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
25 Mar
2019
Heat detections
149
in a single hotspot: 18 MW
Danger at start
20
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
27MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Mar17 Apr
17 Apr 2019

How it evolved, day by day

26 Mar 2019 · 20 MW · 4 27 Mar 2019 · 1 MW · 2 28 Mar 2019 · 3 MW · 2 29 Mar 2019 · 2 MW · 1 30 Mar 2019 · 36 MW · 6 31 Mar 2019 · 30 MW · 11 1 Apr 2019 · 4 MW · 3 2 Apr 2019 · 15 MW · 10 3 Apr 2019 · 20 MW · 11 4 Apr 2019 · 41 MW · 12 5 Apr 2019 · 185 MW · 37 6 Apr 2019 · 61 MW · 15 7 Apr 2019 · 1 MW · 1 8 Apr 2019 · 1 MW · 1 9 Apr 2019 · 23 MW · 4 10 Apr 2019 · 40 MW · 10 11 Apr 2019 · 36 MW · 10 12 Apr 2019 · 4 MW · 1 13 Apr 2019 · 9 MW · 5 16 Apr 2019 · 31 MW · 2 17 Apr 2019 · 1 MW · 1
26 Mar 29 Mar 1 Apr 4 Apr 5 Apr 7 Apr 10 Apr 13 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

30°high
40km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

43% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,138 ha in 2017.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.7% of the area of London (26 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. Petatlán where it started
    2,631 ha reached on 26 Mar
    1.3 %

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)
25 Mar 28.3 °C 49 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
26 Mar 27.7 °C 48 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
27 Mar 29.9 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
28 Mar 29.8 °C 37 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
29 Mar 27.5 °C 48 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
30 Mar 26.7 °C 38 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
31 Mar 26.8 °C 49 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
1 Apr 27.0 °C 49 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
2 Apr 28.1 °C 38 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
3 Apr 28.3 °C 46 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
4 Apr 28.9 °C 45 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
5 Apr 29.3 °C 44 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
6 Apr 27.9 °C 48 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
7 Apr 28.2 °C 47 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
8 Apr 28.4 °C 41 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
9 Apr 28.8 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
10 Apr 28.1 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
11 Apr 26.8 °C 51 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
12 Apr 26.5 °C 44 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
13 Apr 26.4 °C 43 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
14 Apr 25.8 °C 49 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
15 Apr 26.5 °C 55 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
16 Apr 29.8 °C 36 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
17 Apr 29.9 °C 42 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
18 Apr after 28.1 °C 53 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
19 Apr after 26.6 °C 63 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
20 Apr after 28.2 °C 55 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
21 Apr after 27.6 °C 53 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
22 Apr after 27.3 °C 55 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
23 Apr after 27.7 °C 56 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
24 Apr after 26.2 °C 55 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
25 Apr after 26.3 °C 52 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
26 Apr after 26.3 °C 57 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
27 Apr after 29.4 °C 39 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 26

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Mar 2019
After · 24 Apr 2019

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 · 149Every 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 Petatlán fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 25 March 2019 to 17 April 2019 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 26 March 2019 to 13 April 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,617 hectares (26.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Petatlán (2,631 ha, 1.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.9 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, 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.

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 26 March 2019 to 13 April 2019. 149 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

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.