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Tulcingo fire, April 2020 Tulcingo

Out · last detection 6 Apr 2020, 07:35 UTC

The fire started on 2 April 2020 in Tulcingo, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,735 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 14th largest in Puebla since 2016 (of 18 with a page). Number 200 in Mexico in 2020, of 243.

Burnt area
1,735ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
2 Apr 2020 – 6 Apr 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
2 Apr
2020
Heat detections
77
in a single hotspot: 32 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
381MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Apr 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Apr6 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

23456

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
38km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 55 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.0 mm on 16 Apr.

This area had burned before

87% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,505 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Tulcingo where it started
    1,744 ha reached on 2 Apr
    6.2 %

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 5 April 2020 and burned 753 ha (the satellite measured 1,735 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

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)
2 Apr 32.4 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Apr 33.6 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
4 Apr 34.1 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Apr 34.8 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
6 Apr 33.5 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Apr after 33.6 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Apr after 35.8 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Apr after 34.4 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
10 Apr after 34.8 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
11 Apr after 34.6 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
12 Apr after 34.9 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
13 Apr after 33.6 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Apr after 34.5 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
15 Apr after 34.4 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
16 Apr after 34.0 °C 26 % 29 km/h 2.0 mm Moderate 21

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Mar 2020
After · 13 Apr 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 · 77Every 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 Tulcingo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 April 2020 and 6 April 2020: 5 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 1,735 hectares (17.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Tulcingo (1,744 ha, 6.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

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.