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Acala fire, 11 April 2019 Acala, Chiapa de Corzo

Out · last detection 15 Apr 2019, 18:39 UTC

The fire started on 11 April 2019 in Acala, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,994 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 159th largest in Chiapas since 2016 (of 267 with a page). Number 256 in Mexico in 2019, of 364.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Acala · 2019San Lucas · 2018Villa Corzo · 2019

Burnt area
1,994ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
11 Apr 2019 – 15 Apr 2019
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
11 Apr
2019
Heat detections
87
in a single hotspot: 60 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
236MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Apr15 Apr
15 Apr 2019

How it evolved, day by day

11 Apr 2019 · 338 MW · 19 12 Apr 2019 · 506 MW · 36 13 Apr 2019 · 318 MW · 20 14 Apr 2019 · 17 MW · 9 15 Apr 2019 · 3 MW · 2
11 Apr 12 Apr 13 Apr 14 Apr 15 Apr

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
58km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.3% of the area of London (20 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Acala where it started
    1,166 ha
    2.4 %
  2. Chiapa de Corzo
    840 ha
    1.0 %

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.

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)
11 Apr 37.3 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Apr 36.4 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Apr 35.8 °C 22 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Apr 35.1 °C 30 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
15 Apr 33.3 °C 42 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Apr after 35.0 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm High 33
17 Apr after 35.6 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
18 Apr after 36.8 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Apr after 30.8 °C 39 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Apr after 35.1 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Apr after 36.8 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Apr after 36.8 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 Apr after 37.3 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Apr after 37.9 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Apr after 35.6 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Apr 2019
After · 22 Apr 2019

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 · 87Every 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 Acala fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 April 2019 and 15 April 2019: 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 1,994 hectares (19.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Acala (1,166 ha, 2.4 %); Chiapa de Corzo (840 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

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. 87 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.