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Tamazula fire, 17 May 2019 Tamazula

Out · last detection 2 Jun 2019, 09:08 UTC

The fire started on 17 May 2019 in Tamazula, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,068 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 21th largest in Durango since 2016 (of 241 with a page). Number 46 in Mexico in 2019, of 364.

Burnt area
6,068ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
17 May 2019 – 1 Jun 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
17 May
2019
Heat detections
354
in a single hotspot: 55 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Jun 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 May1 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

17181920212223242526272829303112

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
58km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 59 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 9 Jun.

This area had burned before

35% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,166 ha in 2016, 1,131 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,119 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Tamazula where it started
    6,072 ha reached on 17 May
    1.0 %

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.

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)
17 May 25.4 °C 18 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
18 May 25.9 °C 21 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 May 27.8 °C 19 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
20 May 27.2 °C 15 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 May 27.2 °C 11 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 May 27.5 °C 11 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 May 28.1 °C 14 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 May 28.4 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
25 May 29.8 °C 17 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 May 28.1 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
27 May 28.1 °C 24 % 49 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 38
28 May 26.1 °C 32 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
29 May 28.1 °C 21 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
30 May 27.8 °C 22 % 48 km/h 0.4 mm High 35
31 May 27.4 °C 25 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
1 Jun 25.1 °C 44 % 41 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 18
2 Jun after 25.5 °C 42 % 43 km/h 2.5 mm Low 7
3 Jun after 25.5 °C 44 % 42 km/h 4.1 mm Very low 4
4 Jun after 26.2 °C 47 % 40 km/h 1.8 mm Low 5
5 Jun after 25.0 °C 39 % 40 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 13
6 Jun after 26.9 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
7 Jun after 27.9 °C 36 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
8 Jun after 26.2 °C 50 % 43 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 20
9 Jun after 26.0 °C 47 % 40 km/h 2.5 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 May 2019
After · 8 Jun 2019

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 · 354Every 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 Tamazula fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 May 2019 and 1 June 2019: 16 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 6,068 hectares (60.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Tamazula (6,072 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.8 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.