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Sinaloa fire, 30 May 2017 Sinaloa

Out · last detection 8 Jun 2017, 19:57 UTC

The fire started on 30 May 2017 in Sinaloa, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,444 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 44th largest in Sinaloa since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 177 in Mexico in 2017, of 375.

Burnt area
2,444ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
30 May 2017 – 8 Jun 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
30 May
2017
Heat detections
129
in a single hotspot: 47 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
872MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Jun 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 May8 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

303112345678

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
42km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 20 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 16 Jun.

This area had burned before

8% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 193 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Sinaloa 78,670 inhabitants where it started
    2,454 ha reached on 30 May
    0.4 %

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)
30 May 28.8 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
31 May 29.2 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Jun 28.3 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
2 Jun 29.1 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 Jun 29.3 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Jun 29.4 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Jun 31.1 °C 36 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Jun 30.8 °C 37 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Jun 29.7 °C 35 % 37 km/h 1.4 mm Moderate 19
8 Jun 30.8 °C 37 % 41 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 21
9 Jun after 29.8 °C 44 % 39 km/h 0.2 mm High 24
10 Jun after 30.0 °C 42 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm High 25
11 Jun after 28.9 °C 47 % 40 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 21
12 Jun after 30.5 °C 39 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
13 Jun after 31.1 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
14 Jun after 30.2 °C 44 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
15 Jun after 29.0 °C 46 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
16 Jun after 29.7 °C 46 % 32 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 14

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 May 2017
After · 15 Jun 2017

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 · 129Every 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 30 May 2017 and 8 June 2017: 10 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 2,444 hectares (24.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sinaloa (2,454 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.1 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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.