How long did the San Dimas fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 May 2018 and 22 May 2018: 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 3,011 hectares (30.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: San Dimas (2,219 ha, 0.4 %); Otáez (812 ha, 0.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 25.5 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, 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.

MX · Mexico · 2018-05-14 → 2018-05-22

San Dimas fire, 14 May 2018 San Dimas, Otáez

Out · last detection 22 May 2018, 08:18 UTC

The fire started on 14 May 2018 in San Dimas, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,011 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 92th largest in Durango since 2016 (of 239 with a page). Number 77 in Mexico in 2018, of 233.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Otáez · 2023 Otáez · 2022 San Dimas · 2024

Burnt area: 3,011ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 9days; 14 May 2018 – 22 May 2018
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 14 May; 2018
Heat detections: 171; in a single hotspot: 61 MW
Danger at start: 3; Very low · FWI index
Average daily power: 133MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 May22 May

Play back 22 May 2018

How it evolved, day by day

14 May 16 May 17 May 18 May 20 May 22 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

26°high

56km/h · peak gust

17%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 31 May.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 1.9% of the area of London (30 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

San Dimas where it started

2,219 ha

0.4 %
Otáez

812 ha

0.5 %

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 May	22.8 °C	41 %	44 km/h	2.5 mm	Very low 3
12 May	21.8 °C	36 %	38 km/h	0.4 mm	Low 7
13 May	23.5 °C	32 %	40 km/h	0.6 mm	Low 11
14 May	22.9 °C	32 %	43 km/h	0.4 mm	Moderate 14
15 May	25.5 °C	25 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
16 May	24.2 °C	32 %	38 km/h	0.3 mm	Moderate 18
17 May	25.5 °C	31 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
18 May	23.6 °C	23 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
19 May	23.7 °C	18 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
20 May	24.6 °C	21 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
21 May	24.5 °C	17 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
22 May	24.4 °C	21 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
23 May after	25.6 °C	21 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
24 May after	27.6 °C	20 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
25 May after	28.3 °C	21 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
26 May after	27.2 °C	29 %	38 km/h	0.1 mm	High 26
27 May after	27.5 °C	25 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
28 May after	28.2 °C	26 %	46 km/h	0.1 mm	High 29
29 May after	28.6 °C	23 %	51 km/h	0.3 mm	High 30
30 May after	29.4 °C	20 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
31 May after	30.2 °C	23 %	48 km/h	1.6 mm	Moderate 20

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 7 May 2018

After · 29 May 2018

Before After

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 · 171Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Mexico ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the San Dimas fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 May 2018 and 22 May 2018: 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 3,011 hectares (30.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: San Dimas (2,219 ha, 0.4 %); Otáez (812 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 25.5 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, 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

CONAFOR · Comisión Nacional Forestal ↗
CENAPRED ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 171 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.

Where it burned