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Urique fire, 28 May 2022 Choix, Urique, Batopilas

Out · last detection 13 Jun 2022, 21:07 UTC

The fire started on 28 May 2022 in Urique, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,728 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 55th largest in Chihuahua since 2016 (of 235 with a page). Number 30 in Mexico in 2022, of 235.

Burnt area
4,728ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
17days
28 May 2022 – 13 Jun 2022
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
28 May
2022
Heat detections
367
in a single hotspot: 50 MW
Danger at start
51
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Jun 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 May13 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

2829303112345678910111213

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
57km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 49 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.7 mm on 16 Jun.

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 97 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Choix
    2,516 ha reached on 29 May
    0.8 %
  2. Urique where it started
    1,854 ha reached on 28 May
    0.6 %
  3. Batopilas
    374 ha reached on 29 May
    0.2 %

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, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 3,251 ha (the satellite measured 4,728 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)
28 May 33.9 °C 9 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
29 May 30.0 °C 15 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
30 May 29.9 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
31 May 30.9 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Jun 30.5 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Jun 28.9 °C 41 % 36 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 17
3 Jun 27.4 °C 45 % 42 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 18
4 Jun 29.3 °C 40 % 44 km/h 0.7 mm High 22
5 Jun 30.1 °C 34 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
6 Jun 31.3 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Jun 31.1 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.4 mm High 34
8 Jun 29.6 °C 41 % 40 km/h 0.6 mm High 26
9 Jun 29.8 °C 41 % 36 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 21
10 Jun 30.4 °C 39 % 37 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 16
11 Jun 29.9 °C 45 % 41 km/h 3.0 mm Low 7
12 Jun 30.9 °C 39 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
13 Jun 29.7 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.5 mm High 24
14 Jun after 30.0 °C 40 % 34 km/h 3.5 mm Low 6
15 Jun after 32.4 °C 35 % 43 km/h 6.2 mm Low 5
16 Jun after 30.7 °C 40 % 36 km/h 3.7 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 May 2022
After · 20 Jun 2022

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 · 367Every 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 Urique fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 May 2022 and 13 June 2022: 17 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 4,728 hectares (47.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Choix (2,516 ha, 0.8 %); Urique (1,854 ha, 0.6 %); Batopilas (374 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.9 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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.