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Tecate fire, June 2020 Tecate

Out · last detection 12 Jun 2020, 21:15 UTC

The fire started on 9 June 2020 in Tecate, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,995 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality. According to CONAFOR, it was detected on 8 June 2020 and declared extinguished on 15 June 2020.

It is the 8th largest in Baja California since 2016 (of 57 with a page). Number 13 in Mexico in 2020, of 243.

Burnt area
6,995ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
9 Jun 2020 – 12 Jun 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
9 Jun
2020
Heat detections
239
in a single hotspot: 273 MW
Danger at start
76
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
7.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Jun 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Jun12 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

9101112

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
62km/h · peak gust
2%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 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: 99 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Tecate 108,440 inhabitants where it started
    7,014 ha reached on 9 Jun
    2.6 %

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, this fire started on 8 June 2020 and burned 7,993 ha (the satellite measured 6,995 ha).

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)
9 Jun 33.5 °C 2 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
10 Jun 36.0 °C 3 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
11 Jun 32.7 °C 9 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
12 Jun 29.3 °C 9 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
13 Jun after 26.1 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
14 Jun after 27.5 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Jun after 29.0 °C 38 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 Jun after 26.6 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
17 Jun after 26.0 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Jun after 26.0 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Jun after 28.5 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Jun after 28.5 °C 35 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Jun after 30.6 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Jun after 31.6 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Jun 2020
After · 19 Jun 2020

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 · 239Every 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 Tecate fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 June 2020 and 12 June 2020: 4 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter. According to CONAFOR, it was detected on 8 June 2020 and declared extinguished on 15 June 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,995 hectares (70.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Tecate (7,014 ha, 2.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 2 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 76, class Very 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.

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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.