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Petatlán fire, April 2021 Petatlán

Out · last detection 19 Apr 2021, 07:48 UTC

The fire started on 11 April 2021 in Petatlán, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,802 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 492th largest in Guerrero since 2016 (of 612 with a page). Number 235 in Mexico in 2021, of 295.

The power measured by the satellite is low (25.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
1,802ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
11 Apr 2021 – 19 Apr 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
11 Apr
2021
Heat detections
114
in a single hotspot: 25 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
733MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Apr 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Apr19 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

1112131516171819

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
44km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 23 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

34% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 607 ha in 2016, 40 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 608 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Petatlán where it started
    1,812 ha reached on 11 Apr
    0.9 %

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)
11 Apr 28.0 °C 38 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
12 Apr 26.7 °C 42 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
13 Apr 28.0 °C 38 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
14 Apr 28.9 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
15 Apr 28.9 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
16 Apr 29.5 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
17 Apr 27.9 °C 32 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
18 Apr 27.2 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Apr 27.7 °C 21 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Apr after 28.3 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Apr after 28.5 °C 32 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Apr after 29.1 °C 24 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Apr after 28.9 °C 31 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Apr after 28.3 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Apr after 28.6 °C 39 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
26 Apr after 28.9 °C 28 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
27 Apr after 30.0 °C 31 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Apr after 28.0 °C 35 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
29 Apr after 27.1 °C 42 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 31

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Apr 2021
After · 26 Apr 2021

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 · 114Every 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?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 April 2021 and 19 April 2021: 9 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 1,802 hectares (18.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Petatlán (1,812 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.5 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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.

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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.