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Bocoyna fire, April 2022 Bocoyna, Guerrero

Out · last detection 24 May 2022, 20:42 UTC

The fire started on 25 April 2022 in Bocoyna, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 30 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,186 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 7th largest in Chihuahua since 2016 (of 234 with a page). Number 4 in Mexico in 2022, of 232.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Bocoyna · 2025Bocoyna · 2024Bocoyna · 2021Guerrero · 2024

Burnt area
16,186ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
30days
25 Apr 2022 – 24 May 2022
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
25 Apr
2022
Heat detections
1,242
in a single hotspot: 290 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Average daily power
961MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Apr24 May
24 May 2022

How it evolved, day by day

25 Apr 2022 · 174 MW · 4 26 Apr 2022 · 1,088 MW · 35 27 Apr 2022 · 1,242 MW · 24 28 Apr 2022 · 3,846 MW · 47 29 Apr 2022 · 1,061 MW · 36 30 Apr 2022 · 421 MW · 15 1 May 2022 · 4,868 MW · 102 2 May 2022 · 810 MW · 105 3 May 2022 · 441 MW · 32 4 May 2022 · 170 MW · 13 5 May 2022 · 789 MW · 34 6 May 2022 · 209 MW · 26 7 May 2022 · 492 MW · 50 8 May 2022 · 2,713 MW · 53 9 May 2022 · 1,388 MW · 71 10 May 2022 · 310 MW · 53 11 May 2022 · 495 MW · 39 12 May 2022 · 3,775 MW · 146 13 May 2022 · 1,997 MW · 88 14 May 2022 · 1,192 MW · 62 15 May 2022 · 140 MW · 45 16 May 2022 · 121 MW · 39 17 May 2022 · 78 MW · 15 18 May 2022 · 307 MW · 31 19 May 2022 · 22 MW · 4 20 May 2022 · 258 MW · 32 21 May 2022 · 296 MW · 22 22 May 2022 · 9 MW · 5 23 May 2022 · 101 MW · 9 24 May 2022 · 24 MW · 5
25 Apr 30 Apr 1 May 5 May 10 May 15 May 20 May

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
62km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.0 mm on 3 Jun.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 212 ha in 2021.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 10% of the area of London (162 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. Bocoyna where it started
    13,237 ha reached on 25 Apr
    4.9 %
  2. Guerrero
    3,026 ha reached on 13 May
    0.5 %

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 area3.6 ha
Residents≈ 250

Inside the perimeter there were about 3.6 hectares of built-up land and about 250 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

According to CONAFOR, this fire started on 25 April 2022 and burned 9,401 ha (the satellite measured 16,186 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

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)
25 Apr 24.4 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Apr 23.3 °C 33 % 49 km/h 4.2 mm Low 7
27 Apr 22.8 °C 21 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
28 Apr 22.0 °C 18 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
29 Apr 22.2 °C 14 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
30 Apr 24.3 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
1 May 22.2 °C 16 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 May 22.3 °C 13 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 May 23.2 °C 17 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 May 21.2 °C 23 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 May 24.6 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 May 26.2 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
7 May 24.6 °C 21 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
8 May 24.3 °C 15 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 May 25.2 °C 17 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 May 24.1 °C 24 % 57 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 42
11 May 25.4 °C 21 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 May 26.5 °C 15 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 May 26.9 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 May 28.5 °C 8 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 May 29.8 °C 11 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
16 May 27.7 °C 18 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 May 25.8 °C 18 % 50 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 49
18 May 25.3 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 May 23.9 °C 21 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
20 May 21.7 °C 20 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 May 25.0 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
22 May 25.3 °C 20 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 May 22.8 °C 21 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 May 22.9 °C 17 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 May after 27.1 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 May after 28.0 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 May after 27.3 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 41
28 May after 26.1 °C 15 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 May after 23.3 °C 15 % 67 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
30 May after 25.8 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
31 May after 27.9 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Jun after 28.9 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 41
2 Jun after 26.7 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 42
3 Jun after 24.9 °C 33 % 35 km/h 4.0 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Apr 2022
After · 31 May 2022

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 · 1,242Every 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 Bocoyna fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 April 2022 and 24 May 2022: 30 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 16,186 hectares (161.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bocoyna (13,237 ha, 4.9 %); Guerrero (3,026 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.8 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 62 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.

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 1,242 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with CONAFOR: 9,401 official ha against 16,186 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.