Rioverde fire, May 2021 Rioverde, Santa María del Río
The fire started on 2 May 2021 in Rioverde, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,969 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 3th largest in San Luis Potosí since 2016 (of 19 with a page). Number 17 in Mexico in 2021, of 295.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 7,969ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 9days
- 2 May 2021 – 10 May 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 2 May
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 349
- in a single hotspot: 228 MW
- Danger at start
- 24
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 827MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 13.6 mm on 11 May.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Rioverde where it started6,569 ha reached on 2 May2.1 %
-
1,434 ha reached on 3 May0.8 %
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.
Several official records match this area
According to CONAFOR, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 4,524 ha (the satellite measured 7,969 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.
CONAFOR records each fire that started at a different time or place separately; the satellite sees a single burned area, so this page groups them together. The numbers on the map show where each one started.
- 1 Rioverde Paso de los Alisios 1 May 2021 2,774 ha · extinguished on 14 May 2021 · cause: natural (lightning)
- 2 Rioverde Huertitas 3 May 2021 1,750 ha · extinguished on 10 May 2021 · cause: natural (lightning)
Total according to CONAFOR: 4,524 ha, 57 % of the 7,969 ha in the satellite perimeter.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 May | 33.1 °C | 10 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 3 May | 35.2 °C | 7 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 4 May | 34.5 °C | 11 % | 55 km/h | 0.5 mm | Very high 45 |
| 5 May | 28.9 °C | 46 % | 48 km/h | 2.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 6 May | 28.2 °C | 42 % | 50 km/h | 1.4 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 7 May | 25.8 °C | 49 % | 46 km/h | 2.8 mm | Low 5 |
| 8 May | 29.2 °C | 39 % | 40 km/h | 1.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 9 May | 31.4 °C | 31 % | 39 km/h | 4.4 mm | Low 6 |
| 10 May | 30.7 °C | 34 % | 40 km/h | 2.3 mm | Low 10 |
| 11 May after | 28.8 °C | 50 % | 34 km/h | 13.6 mm | Very low 1 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 349Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Rioverde fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 2 May 2021 to 10 May 2021 (9 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 May 2021 to 8 May 2021.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,969 hectares (79.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Rioverde (6,569 ha, 2.1 %); Santa María del Río (1,434 ha, 0.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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
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 2 May 2021 to 8 May 2021. 349 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with CONAFOR: 4,524 official ha against 7,969 ha of perimeter; similar, but with reservations.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.