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Tabasco fire, April 2023 Tabasco, El Plateado de Joaquín Amaro, Huanusco

Out · last detection 29 Apr 2023, 19:27 UTC

The fire started on 19 April 2023 in Tabasco, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,463 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 21th largest in Zacatecas since 2016 (of 31 with a page). Number 133 in Mexico in 2023, of 286.

Burnt area
2,463ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
19 Apr 2023 – 29 Apr 2023
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
19 Apr
2023
Heat detections
113
in a single hotspot: 43 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Apr 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Apr29 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

19202223242526272829

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
58km/h · peak gust
5%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Tabasco where it started
    1,361 ha reached on 19 Apr
    3.3 %
  2. El Plateado de Joaquín Amaro
    981 ha reached on 27 Apr
    2.8 %
  3. Huanusco
    130 ha reached on 25 Apr
    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.

Official record

According to CONAFOR, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 1,250 ha (the satellite measured 2,463 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)
19 Apr 29.4 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
20 Apr 31.0 °C 10 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
21 Apr 30.6 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
22 Apr 29.7 °C 11 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
23 Apr 28.6 °C 10 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
24 Apr 27.5 °C 6 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
25 Apr 27.7 °C 5 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
26 Apr 27.2 °C 6 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
27 Apr 28.8 °C 6 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
28 Apr 28.0 °C 7 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
29 Apr 29.1 °C 9 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
30 Apr after 29.4 °C 9 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
1 May after 27.0 °C 13 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
2 May after 28.1 °C 8 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
3 May after 30.9 °C 5 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
4 May after 29.3 °C 10 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
5 May after 30.6 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
6 May after 31.9 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 52
7 May after 30.3 °C 18 % 52 km/h 0.8 mm Very high 46
8 May after 29.2 °C 15 % 55 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 51
9 May after 29.5 °C 15 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Apr 2023
After · 6 May 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 29 April 2023 the air beside the fire reached 44 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak44 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1063 µg/m³
Optical depth0.33
171819202122232425262728293012
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 · 113Every 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 Tabasco fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 April 2023 and 29 April 2023: 11 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 2,463 hectares (24.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Tabasco (1,361 ha, 3.3 %); El Plateado de Joaquín Amaro (981 ha, 2.8 %); Huanusco (130 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.0 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, class Extreme.
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
What do you think is wrong?

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.