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Sinaloa fire, April 2018 Sinaloa

Out · last detection 29 Apr 2018, 20:04 UTC

The fire started on 8 April 2018 in Sinaloa, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,598 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 7th largest in Sinaloa since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 17 in Mexico in 2018, of 235.

The power measured by the satellite is low (24.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
10,598ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
21days
8 Apr 2018 – 28 Apr 2018
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
8 Apr
2018
Heat detections
437
in a single hotspot: 24 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Apr 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Apr28 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

8910111213141516171819202123242526272829

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
48km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 38 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

74% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,827 ha in 2016, 76 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Sinaloa 78,670 inhabitants where it started
    10,645 ha reached on 8 Apr
    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)
8 Apr 31.1 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Apr 30.4 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
10 Apr 30.9 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
11 Apr 33.3 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Apr 30.5 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Apr 29.1 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Apr 31.2 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Apr 32.9 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Apr 31.9 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
17 Apr 32.4 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Apr 33.9 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Apr 33.0 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Apr 31.5 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Apr 31.5 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Apr 32.2 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Apr 35.1 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Apr 34.6 °C 13 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Apr 35.2 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Apr 34.3 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
27 Apr 33.4 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 43
28 Apr 32.2 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
29 Apr after 31.8 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
30 Apr after 31.3 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 May after 32.8 °C 21 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 May after 31.0 °C 26 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 May after 32.6 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 May after 35.3 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 May after 36.6 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
6 May after 34.8 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.8 mm High 34
7 May after 36.8 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 May after 34.5 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 May after 34.2 °C 30 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 May after 33.9 °C 39 % 39 km/h 0.3 mm High 33
11 May after 33.4 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Apr 2018
After · 5 May 2018

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 · 437Every 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 8 April 2018 and 28 April 2018: 21 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 10,598 hectares (106.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sinaloa (10,645 ha, 1.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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
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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.