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Sinaloa fire, 11 May 2017 Sinaloa

Out · last detection 15 May 2017, 09:33 UTC

The fire started on 11 May 2017 in Sinaloa, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,800 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 64th largest in Sinaloa since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 282 in Mexico in 2017, of 375.

Burnt area
1,800ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
11 May 2017 – 15 May 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
11 May
2017
Heat detections
93
in a single hotspot: 58 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
605MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 May 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 May15 May

How it evolved, day by day

1112131415

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
42km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

12% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 220 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Sinaloa 78,670 inhabitants where it started
    1,808 ha reached on 11 May
    0.3 %

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 32.9 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 May 33.1 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 May 32.0 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 May 31.3 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 May 28.0 °C 37 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 May after 27.4 °C 37 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 May after 30.3 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
18 May after 30.3 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 May after 30.7 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 May after 32.8 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 May after 31.8 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 May after 32.9 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
23 May after 33.7 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 May after 33.1 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
25 May after 33.0 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 May 2017
After · 22 May 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 · 93Every 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 11 May 2017 and 15 May 2017: 5 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 1,800 hectares (18.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sinaloa (1,808 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.1 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.

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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.