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Tijuana fire, 7 December 2017 Tijuana

Out · last detection 10 Dec 2017, 09:13 UTC

The fire started on 7 December 2017 in Tijuana, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,311 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality. According to CONAFOR, it was detected on 7 December 2017 and declared extinguished on 11 December 2017.

It is the 15th largest in Baja California since 2016 (of 57 with a page). Number 88 in Mexico in 2017, of 375.

Burnt area
4,311ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
7 Dec 2017 – 10 Dec 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
7 Dec
2017
Heat detections
201
in a single hotspot: 524 MW
Danger at start
72
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
15.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Dec 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Dec10 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

78910

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

The weather it burned in

27°high
81km/h · peak gust
2%lowest humidity

It had gone 47 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. Tijuana 1,922,523 inhabitants where it started
    4,323 ha reached on 7 Dec
    3.5 %

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 7 December 2017 and burned 4,660 ha (the satellite measured 4,311 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)
7 Dec 21.2 °C 2 % 81 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
8 Dec 24.0 °C 3 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
9 Dec 25.0 °C 10 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
10 Dec 25.6 °C 6 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
11 Dec after 26.9 °C 5 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Dec after 27.1 °C 2 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
13 Dec after 25.9 °C 5 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Dec after 24.1 °C 2 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Dec after 26.7 °C 4 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
16 Dec after 15.4 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 50
17 Dec after 20.3 °C 12 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
18 Dec after 20.4 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Dec after 19.5 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Dec after 16.5 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.5 mm High 35
21 Dec after 15.5 °C 9 % 42 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 41
22 Dec after 18.6 °C 9 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Dec after 20.1 °C 9 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Dec after 22.9 °C 8 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Nov 2017
After · 17 Dec 2017

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 · 201Every 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 Tijuana fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 December 2017 and 10 December 2017: 4 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter. According to CONAFOR, it was detected on 7 December 2017 and declared extinguished on 11 December 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,311 hectares (43.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Tijuana (4,323 ha, 3.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.1 °C, humidity dropped to 2 % and gusts hit 81 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 72, 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.