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Sinaloa fire, May 2023 Sinaloa, Guadalupe y Calvo

Out · last detection 2 Jun 2023, 09:16 UTC

The fire started on 26 May 2023 in Sinaloa, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,418 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 45th largest in Sinaloa since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 141 in Mexico in 2023, of 286.

The power measured by the satellite is low (20.9 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
2,418ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
26 May 2023 – 2 Jun 2023
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
26 May
2023
Heat detections
111
in a single hotspot: 21 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
472MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Jun 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 May2 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

26272829303112

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
48km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 41 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 36 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Sinaloa 78,670 inhabitants where it started
    2,120 ha reached on 26 May
    0.3 %
  2. Guadalupe y Calvo
    311 ha reached on 29 May
    0.0 %

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.

Official record

According to CONAFOR, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 1,716 ha (the satellite measured 2,418 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

CONAFOR (Comisión Nacional Forestal), estadística de incendios forestales en datos.gob.mx (CC BY 4.0). This is the agency’s consolidated statistic: it measures the area in its own way, which is why it can differ from the satellite.

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)
26 May 32.0 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 May 30.2 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
28 May 28.3 °C 18 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
29 May 28.9 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 May 29.6 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
31 May 30.8 °C 24 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Jun 30.0 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Jun 30.6 °C 18 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Jun after 29.9 °C 20 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Jun after 32.6 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Jun after 32.8 °C 26 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Jun after 30.5 °C 29 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Jun after 30.1 °C 28 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Jun after 30.7 °C 28 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
9 Jun after 33.6 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Jun after 33.3 °C 22 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Jun after 34.9 °C 20 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
12 Jun after 35.5 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 May 2023
After · 9 Jun 2023

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 25 May 2023 the air beside the fire reached 62 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 35: 2.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak62 µg/m³
Days over the guideline9 days
PM1089 µg/m³
Optical depth0.45
242526272829303112345
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 111Every 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 26 May 2023 and 2 June 2023: 8 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 2,418 hectares (24.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Sinaloa (2,120 ha, 0.3 %); Guadalupe y Calvo (311 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.0 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.