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Sinaloa fire, 21 May 2016 Sinaloa

Out · last detection 10 Jun 2016, 20:05 UTC

The fire started on 21 May 2016 in Sinaloa, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,864 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 6th largest in Sinaloa since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 3 in Mexico in 2016, of 208.

Burnt area
10,864ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
21 May 2016 – 9 Jun 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
21 May
2016
Heat detections
633
in a single hotspot: 38 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Jun 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 May9 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

21222324262728293031123456910

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
42km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 19 Jun.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Sinaloa 78,670 inhabitants where it started
    10,914 ha reached on 21 May
    1.7 %

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)
21 May 29.4 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
22 May 30.4 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
23 May 30.3 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
24 May 28.9 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
25 May 30.5 °C 26 % 23 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
26 May 28.4 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.4 mm High 33
27 May 30.3 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 May 31.5 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 May 32.5 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
30 May 28.9 °C 35 % 41 km/h 2.3 mm Moderate 12
31 May 25.1 °C 58 % 31 km/h 7.9 mm Very low 1
1 Jun 26.0 °C 50 % 40 km/h 2.6 mm Very low 4
2 Jun 31.1 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
3 Jun 35.3 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Jun 34.0 °C 28 % 35 km/h 2.1 mm Moderate 16
5 Jun 35.7 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Jun 30.3 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
7 Jun 28.1 °C 54 % 34 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 12
8 Jun 24.8 °C 63 % 28 km/h 6.3 mm Very low 1
9 Jun 23.9 °C 66 % 27 km/h 2.8 mm Very low 1
10 Jun after 26.5 °C 61 % 29 km/h 4.8 mm Very low 1
11 Jun after 29.4 °C 43 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm Very low 5
12 Jun after 30.6 °C 44 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
13 Jun after 32.9 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
14 Jun after 32.3 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
15 Jun after 31.1 °C 39 % 38 km/h 0.4 mm High 22
16 Jun after 30.2 °C 45 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
17 Jun after 31.0 °C 49 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
18 Jun after 30.7 °C 45 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
19 Jun after 33.5 °C 27 % 54 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 · 14 May 2016
After · 16 Jun 2016

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 · 633Every 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 Sinaloa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 May 2016 and 9 June 2016: 20 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 10,864 hectares (108.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sinaloa (10,914 ha, 1.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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.