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Tijuana fire, 6 December 2017 Tijuana, Ensenada

Out · last detection 7 Dec 2017, 21:28 UTC

The fire started on 6 December 2017 in Tijuana, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,520 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 57th largest in Baja California since 2016 (of 57 with a page). Number 364 in Mexico in 2017, of 375.

Burnt area
1,520ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
2days
6 Dec 2017 – 7 Dec 2017
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
6 Dec
2017
Heat detections
75
in a single hotspot: 141 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Dec 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Dec7 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

67

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

The weather it burned in

20°high
73km/h · peak gust
3%lowest humidity

It had gone 28 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 16 Dec.

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
    1,489 ha reached on 6 Dec
    1.2 %
  2. Ensenada
    34 ha
    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.

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)
6 Dec 20.1 °C 6 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Dec 19.9 °C 3 % 73 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
8 Dec after 21.6 °C 6 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Dec after 23.5 °C 8 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
10 Dec after 23.9 °C 6 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Dec after 23.4 °C 9 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
12 Dec after 23.6 °C 5 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Dec after 22.4 °C 7 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
14 Dec after 19.8 °C 10 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Dec after 23.9 °C 7 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Dec after 12.8 °C 29 % 38 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 15

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Nov 2017
After · 14 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 · 75Every 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 6 December 2017 and 7 December 2017: 2 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 1,520 hectares (15.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Tijuana (1,489 ha, 1.2 %); Ensenada (34 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 20.1 °C, humidity dropped to 3 % and gusts hit 73 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.

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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.