Uruachi fire, May 2019 Uruachi, Chínipas
The fire started on 27 May 2019 in Uruachi, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,071 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 148th largest in Chihuahua since 2016 (of 234 with a page). Number 239 in Mexico in 2019, of 364.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 2,071ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 10days
- 27 May 2019 – 5 Jun 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 27 May
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 154
- in a single hotspot: 32 MW
- Danger at start
- 40
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 88MW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 9 Jun.
This area had burned before
19% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 248 ha in 2017, 152 ha in 2018.
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
-
Uruachi where it started2,052 ha reached on 27 May0.8 %
-
27 ha0.0 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
Official record
According to CONAFOR, this fire started on 27 May 2019 and burned 941 ha (the satellite measured 2,071 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.
- Uruachi N.C.P. Guadalupe 27 May 2019 941 ha · extinguished on 5 June 2019 · cause: arson
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 May | 27.4 °C | 19 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 28 May | 25.7 °C | 15 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 29 May | 25.9 °C | 20 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 30 May | 28.3 °C | 23 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 31 May | 29.1 °C | 23 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 1 Jun | 29.3 °C | 34 % | 48 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 35 |
| 2 Jun | 29.0 °C | 37 % | 48 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 33 |
| 3 Jun | 27.7 °C | 40 % | 44 km/h | 1.9 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 4 Jun | 27.2 °C | 43 % | 53 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 22 |
| 5 Jun | 27.3 °C | 32 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 6 Jun after | 29.2 °C | 29 % | 42 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 29 |
| 7 Jun after | 30.5 °C | 23 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 8 Jun after | 30.8 °C | 25 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 9 Jun after | 31.5 °C | 26 % | 41 km/h | 1.2 mm | High 26 |
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 · 154Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Uruachi fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 May 2019 and 5 June 2019: 10 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 2,071 hectares (20.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Uruachi (2,052 ha, 0.8 %); Chínipas (27 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 29.3 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 154 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with CONAFOR: 941 official ha against 2,071 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.