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Uruachi fire, May 2017 Uruachi

Out · last detection 16 Jun 2017, 20:48 UTC

The fire started on 29 May 2017 in Uruachi, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,671 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 45th largest in Chihuahua since 2016 (of 235 with a page). Number 51 in Mexico in 2017, of 375.

Burnt area
5,671ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
19days
29 May 2017 – 16 Jun 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
29 May
2017
Heat detections
387
in a single hotspot: 89 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Jun 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 May16 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

29303112345678910111213141516

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
51km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 18 Jun.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Uruachi where it started
    5,695 ha reached on 28 May
    2.1 %

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)
28 May 32.4 °C 17 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 May 31.0 °C 25 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 May 29.8 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 43
31 May 30.0 °C 29 % 50 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 39
1 Jun 28.6 °C 20 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
2 Jun 30.0 °C 22 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
3 Jun 31.2 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 38
4 Jun 32.4 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Jun 33.5 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 39
6 Jun 32.8 °C 34 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Jun 32.5 °C 29 % 43 km/h 4.4 mm Moderate 11
8 Jun 30.8 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 20
9 Jun 31.5 °C 35 % 42 km/h 0.3 mm High 25
10 Jun 31.9 °C 29 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Jun 30.7 °C 32 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Jun 32.0 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Jun 34.4 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Jun 35.3 °C 22 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Jun 35.2 °C 24 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Jun 34.1 °C 30 % 46 km/h 0.2 mm High 38
17 Jun after 34.2 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.2 mm High 38
18 Jun after 33.5 °C 35 % 42 km/h 2.1 mm Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 May 2017
After · 23 Jun 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 · 387Every 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 Uruachi fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 May 2017 and 16 June 2017: 19 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 5,671 hectares (56.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Uruachi (5,695 ha, 2.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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.