Chanal fire, March 2024 Chanal
The fire started on 25 March 2024 in Chanal, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,107 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 5th largest in Chiapas since 2016 (of 265 with a page). Number 16 in Mexico in 2024, of 289.
- Burnt area
- 9,107ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 15days
- 25 Mar 2024 – 8 Apr 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 25 Mar
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 797
- in a single hotspot: 163 MW
- Danger at start
- 14
- Moderate · FWI index
- Energy released
- 8.7GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.2 mm on 11 Apr.
This area had burned before
40% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 635 ha in 2016, 29 ha in 2017, 1,116 ha in 2018, 1,665 ha in 2019, 1,449 ha in 2021, 621 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,631 ha that had burned before.
- 1,449 ha Chanal fire, March 2021 2,500 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 683 ha Chanal fire, April 2019 1,861 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 635 ha Chanal fire, March 2016 2,304 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 621 ha Chanal fire, March 2022 1,513 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 13 ha Chanal fire, April 2019 1,549 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2 ha Chanal fire, April 2019 1,642 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Chanal where it started9,158 ha reached on 21 Mar22 %
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.
Official record
According to CONAFOR, 4 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 8,099 ha (the satellite measured 9,107 ha).
- Chanal Innominado/ Barrio la Montaña 25 March 2024 3,015 ha · extinguished on 25 March 2024 · cause: unknown
- Chanal Pequeño Banco/ Carr. Naranjal 26 March 2024 2,363 ha · extinguished on 27 March 2024 · cause: unknown
- Chanal ANPE Bosques de Coniferas de Chanal/ Jamal 28 March 2024 1,836 ha · extinguished on 10 April 2024 · cause: arson
- Chanal Ejido chanal jamal/ Cruztanaj 29 March 2024 884 ha · extinguished on 10 April 2024 · 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 Mar | 25.7 °C | 35 % | 28 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 22 Mar | 26.0 °C | 37 % | 31 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 23 Mar | 21.3 °C | 55 % | 25 km/h | 1.3 mm | Low 5 |
| 24 Mar | 24.4 °C | 37 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 25 Mar | 23.8 °C | 37 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 26 Mar | 26.0 °C | 23 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 27 Mar | 26.3 °C | 24 % | 33 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 21 |
| 28 Mar | 17.6 °C | 65 % | 31 km/h | 5.9 mm | Very low 0 |
| 29 Mar | 23.3 °C | 34 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 30 Mar | 24.9 °C | 31 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 31 Mar | 25.5 °C | 21 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 1 Apr | 25.2 °C | 37 % | 33 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 2 Apr | 25.4 °C | 37 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 3 Apr | 22.1 °C | 47 % | 36 km/h | 1.1 mm | Low 8 |
| 4 Apr | 19.4 °C | 62 % | 23 km/h | 4.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 5 Apr | 21.3 °C | 51 % | 29 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very low 4 |
| 6 Apr | 23.7 °C | 41 % | 22 km/h | 0.4 mm | Low 7 |
| 7 Apr | 25.2 °C | 37 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 8 Apr | 24.4 °C | 41 % | 24 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 9 Apr after | 25.3 °C | 46 % | 32 km/h | 1.1 mm | Low 9 |
| 10 Apr after | 25.2 °C | 38 % | 36 km/h | 4.4 mm | Very low 3 |
| 11 Apr after | 20.4 °C | 44 % | 54 km/h | 2.2 mm | Very low 5 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 29 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 46 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 30: 2.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 797Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Chanal fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 March 2024 and 8 April 2024: 15 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 9,107 hectares (91.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Chanal (9,158 ha, 22 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 26.3 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, 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
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
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.