How long did the Casimiro Castillo fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 May 2020 to 27 May 2020 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 May 2020 to 26 May 2020.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,796 hectares (28.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cuautitlán de García Barragán (2,331 ha, 1.7 %); Casimiro Castillo (481 ha, 0.9 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 30.8 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.

MX · Mexico · 14 May 2020 – 27 May 2020

Casimiro Castillo fire, May 2020 Cuautitlán de García Barragán, Casimiro Castillo

Out · last detection 27 May 2020, 08:19 UTC

The fire started on 14 May 2020 in Casimiro Castillo, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,796 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 104th largest in Jalisco since 2016 (of 283 with a page). Number 85 in Mexico in 2020, of 242.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Casimiro Castillo · 2016 Cuautitlán de García Barragán · 2024 Cuautitlán de García Barragán · 2017 Casimiro Castillo · 2017

Burnt area: 2,796ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 14days; 14 May 2020 – 27 May 2020
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 14 May; 2020
Heat detections: 243; in a single hotspot: 37 MW
Danger at start: 34; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 100MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 May27 May

Play back 27 May 2020

How it evolved, day by day

14 May 17 May 20 May 24 May 27 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

31°high

45km/h · peak gust

17%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

9% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 251 ha in 2016.

251 ha Casimiro Castillo fire, May 2016 2,393 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 1.8% of the area of London (28 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

Cuautitlán de García Barragán

2,331 ha reached on 14 May

1.7 %
Casimiro Castillo where it started

481 ha reached on 14 May

0.9 %

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 area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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 14 May 2020 and burned 1,300 ha (the satellite measured 2,796 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

Cuautitlán de García Barragán Palos Verdes 14 May 2020 1,300 ha · extinguished on 15 May 2020 · cause: negligence

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)
14 May	29.6 °C	19 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
15 May	29.0 °C	20 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
16 May	29.4 °C	17 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
17 May	29.8 °C	18 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
18 May	30.8 °C	20 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
19 May	30.5 °C	22 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
20 May	30.1 °C	30 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
21 May	28.8 °C	35 %	40 km/h	0.2 mm	High 32
22 May	29.7 °C	36 %	44 km/h	0.3 mm	High 32
23 May	28.7 °C	39 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
24 May	28.5 °C	26 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
25 May	26.5 °C	32 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
26 May	27.5 °C	32 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
27 May	27.4 °C	34 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
28 May after	28.4 °C	31 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
29 May after	28.5 °C	35 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
30 May after	26.9 °C	49 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
31 May after	26.2 °C	50 %	35 km/h	0.4 mm	High 23
1 Jun after	27.4 °C	49 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
2 Jun after	27.4 °C	51 %	34 km/h	0.4 mm	High 23
3 Jun after	27.7 °C	56 %	36 km/h	0.2 mm	High 22
4 Jun after	28.3 °C	52 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
5 Jun after	26.4 °C	61 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
6 Jun after	26.2 °C	60 %	37 km/h	0.8 mm	Moderate 14

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 7 May 2020

After · 3 Jun 2020

Before After

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 · 243Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Mexico

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Casimiro Castillo fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 May 2020 to 27 May 2020 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 May 2020 to 26 May 2020.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,796 hectares (28.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cuautitlán de García Barragán (2,331 ha, 1.7 %); Casimiro Castillo (481 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 30.8 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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

CONAFOR · Comisión Nacional Forestal ↗
CENAPRED ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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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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How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 14 May 2020 to 26 May 2020. 243 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
Compared with CONAFOR: 1,300 official ha against 2,796 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.

Where it burned