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Rioverde fire, April 2019 Rioverde

Out · last detection 23 Apr 2019, 19:31 UTC

The fire started on 10 April 2019 in Rioverde, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,898 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 5th largest in San Luis Potosí since 2016 (of 19 with a page). Number 61 in Mexico in 2019, of 364.

Burnt area
4,898ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
10 Apr 2019 – 23 Apr 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
10 Apr
2019
Heat detections
333
in a single hotspot: 161 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
4.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Apr 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Apr23 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

101112131415181920212223

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
51km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 mm on 28 Apr.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Rioverde where it started
    4,912 ha reached on 10 Apr
    1.6 %

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 9 April 2019 and burned 2,528 ha (the satellite measured 4,898 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)
10 Apr 31.8 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
11 Apr 33.4 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Apr 31.9 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Apr 31.7 °C 11 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Apr 18.4 °C 53 % 44 km/h 3.6 mm Very low 4
15 Apr 23.9 °C 41 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
16 Apr 29.1 °C 37 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
17 Apr 34.5 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
18 Apr 31.1 °C 16 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
19 Apr 24.2 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
20 Apr 26.5 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
21 Apr 28.5 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Apr 28.5 °C 34 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
23 Apr 27.8 °C 43 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
24 Apr after 32.2 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
25 Apr after 23.8 °C 45 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm High 23
26 Apr after 25.1 °C 36 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
27 Apr after 28.2 °C 31 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
28 Apr after 29.5 °C 32 % 48 km/h 1.8 mm Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Apr 2019
After · 30 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 · 333Every 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 Rioverde fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 April 2019 and 23 April 2019: 14 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 4,898 hectares (49.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Rioverde (4,912 ha, 1.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.

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.