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Villa Corzo fire, March 2016 Villa Corzo

Out · last detection 6 Apr 2016, 07:30 UTC

The fire started on 30 March 2016 in Villa Corzo, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,106 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 143th largest in Chiapas since 2016 (of 265 with a page). Number 114 in Mexico in 2016, of 208.

Burnt area
2,106ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
30 Mar 2016 – 5 Apr 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
30 Mar
2016
Heat detections
83
in a single hotspot: 77 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
842MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Apr 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Mar5 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

3031123456

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
66km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 22 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.7 mm on 19 Apr.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Villa Corzo where it started
    2,120 ha reached on 27 Mar
    0.8 %

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)
27 Mar 37.0 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
28 Mar 33.1 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.7 mm High 27
29 Mar 34.3 °C 40 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm High 26
30 Mar 34.0 °C 36 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
31 Mar 32.7 °C 41 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
1 Apr 33.3 °C 32 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Apr 33.1 °C 31 % 66 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
3 Apr 29.8 °C 44 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Apr 31.5 °C 37 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Apr 31.5 °C 40 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
6 Apr after 33.3 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
7 Apr after 33.5 °C 33 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Apr after 34.6 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
9 Apr after 32.9 °C 35 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Apr after 36.0 °C 21 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
11 Apr after 36.4 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Apr after 36.8 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Apr after 36.3 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Apr after 35.7 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.6 mm High 36
15 Apr after 34.4 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 34
16 Apr after 36.0 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Apr after 35.3 °C 31 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Apr after 35.5 °C 26 % 23 km/h 0.6 mm High 33
19 Apr after 34.3 °C 34 % 29 km/h 3.7 mm Low 11

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Mar 2016
After · 12 Apr 2016

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 · 83Every 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 Villa Corzo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 March 2016 and 5 April 2016: 7 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 2,106 hectares (21.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Villa Corzo (2,120 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 66 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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
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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.