Tijuana fire, June 2020 Tijuana
The fire started on 9 June 2020 in Tijuana, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,312 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 34th largest in Baja California since 2016 (of 57 with a page). Number 118 in Mexico in 2020, of 243.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 2,312ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 3days
- 9 Jun 2020 – 11 Jun 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 9 Jun
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 95
- in a single hotspot: 307 MW
- Danger at start
- 56
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.4GW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 3 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.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
2,319 ha reached on 10 Jun1.9 %
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 9 June 2020 and burned 4,794 ha (the satellite measured 2,312 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.
- Tijuana Ejido General Francisco Villa - N.C.P.E. El Ojo de Agua / Valle Bonito 9 June 2020 4,794 ha · extinguished on 11 June 2020 · cause: negligence
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 Jun | 32.0 °C | 4 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 11 Jun | 28.3 °C | 11 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 12 Jun after | 24.1 °C | 26 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 13 Jun after | 22.9 °C | 30 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 14 Jun after | 23.6 °C | 34 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 15 Jun after | 23.2 °C | 46 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 16 Jun after | 22.6 °C | 45 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 17 Jun after | 21.9 °C | 50 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 18 Jun after | 21.1 °C | 46 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 19 Jun after | 22.9 °C | 44 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 20 Jun after | 22.2 °C | 46 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 21 Jun after | 24.6 °C | 45 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 95Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 4,311 haTijuana7 December 2017 · 8 days · 9 km away
- 5,641 haTecateOctober 2019 · 2 days · 18 km away
- 4,247 haPlayas de RosaritoOctober 2017 · 5 days · 19 km away
- 6,995 haTecateJune 2020 · 5 days · 20 km away
- 25,713 haEnsenada21 October 2019 · 7 days · 33 km away
- 6,676 haValley San DiegoSeptember 2020 · 7 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Tijuana fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 9 June 2020 to 11 June 2020 (3 days). The perimeter dates it from 10 June 2020 to 11 June 2020.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,312 hectares (23.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Tijuana (2,319 ha, 1.9 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.0 °C, humidity dropped to 4 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 10 June 2020 to 11 June 2020. 95 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with CONAFOR: 4,794 official ha against 2,312 ha of perimeter; similar, but with reservations.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.