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Asunción Nochixtlán fire, April 2021 Magdalena Jaltepec, San Juan Tamazola, Asunción Nochixtlán

Out · last detection 19 Apr 2021, 20:38 UTC

The fire started on 8 April 2021 in Asunción Nochixtlán, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,247 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 48th largest in Oaxaca since 2016 (of 204 with a page). Number 105 in Mexico in 2021, of 295.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Santiago Tilantongo · 2019San Mateo Sindihui · 2024San Juan Teita · 2021San Mateo Sindihui · 2024

Burnt area
3,247ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
8 Apr 2021 – 19 Apr 2021
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
8 Apr
2021
Heat detections
103
in a single hotspot: 394 MW
Danger at start
16
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
238MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Apr19 Apr
19 Apr 2021

How it evolved, day by day

8 Apr 2021 · 33 MW · 3 10 Apr 2021 · 23 MW · 2 11 Apr 2021 · 56 MW · 6 12 Apr 2021 · 59 MW · 6 13 Apr 2021 · 265 MW · 15 14 Apr 2021 · 64 MW · 8 15 Apr 2021 · 129 MW · 7 16 Apr 2021 · 1,680 MW · 9 17 Apr 2021 · 123 MW · 13 18 Apr 2021 · 113 MW · 25 19 Apr 2021 · 78 MW · 9
8 Apr 11 Apr 13 Apr 15 Apr 16 Apr 17 Apr 19 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

32°high
46km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.2 mm on 28 Apr.

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 2.1% of the area of London (32 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. Magdalena Jaltepec
    1,829 ha reached on 8 Apr
    7.8 %
  2. San Juan Tamazola
    718 ha reached on 13 Apr
    2.0 %
  3. Asunción Nochixtlán where it started
    717 ha reached on 8 Apr
    2.1 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area0.49 ha
Residents≈ 40

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.49 hectares of built-up land and about 40 residents (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

Official record

Several official records match this area

According to CONAFOR, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 1,220 ha (the satellite measured 3,247 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

CONAFOR records each fire that started at a different time or place separately; the satellite sees a single burned area, so this page groups them together. The numbers on the map show where each one started.

When each one burned

1 20 ha 2 1,200 ha
8 Apr19 Apr
cause unknown or not published
  1. 1 Asunción Nochixtlán Bienes Comunales Santiago Mitlatongo 8 April 2021 20 ha · extinguished on 10 April 2021 · cause: unknown
  2. 2 Asunción Nochixtlán Santiago Mitlatongo, San Juan Tamazola, Magdalena Jaltepec 11 April 2021 1,200 ha · extinguished on 20 April 2021 · cause: unknown

Total according to CONAFOR: 1,220 ha, 38 % of the 3,247 ha in the satellite perimeter.

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)
8 Apr 26.7 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 16
9 Apr 28.6 °C 38 % 37 km/h 2.7 mm Low 7
10 Apr 30.2 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
11 Apr 29.4 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
12 Apr 30.6 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
13 Apr 30.9 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
14 Apr 28.3 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.7 mm High 23
15 Apr 29.7 °C 31 % 35 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 19
16 Apr 31.8 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
17 Apr 31.6 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Apr 29.6 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Apr 29.6 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Apr after 29.8 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Apr after 27.0 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm High 29
22 Apr after 29.2 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
23 Apr after 29.3 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
24 Apr after 30.6 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 Apr after 31.0 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Apr after 31.8 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Apr after 31.0 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
28 Apr after 29.4 °C 32 % 30 km/h 2.2 mm Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Apr 2021
After · 26 Apr 2021

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 · 103Every 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 Asunción Nochixtlán fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 April 2021 and 19 April 2021: 12 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 3,247 hectares (32.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Magdalena Jaltepec (1,829 ha, 7.8 %); San Juan Tamazola (718 ha, 2.0 %); Asunción Nochixtlán (717 ha, 2.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.8 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class 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. 103 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with CONAFOR: 1,220 official ha against 3,247 ha of perimeter; similar, but with reservations.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.