Concordia fire, April 2024 Concordia
The fire started on 21 April 2024 in Concordia, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,210 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 15th largest in Sinaloa since 2016 (of 82 with a page). Number 34 in Mexico in 2024, of 289.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 6,210ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 21days
- 21 Apr 2024 – 11 May 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 21 Apr
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 625
- in a single hotspot: 52 MW
- Danger at start
- 35
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 174MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 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?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Concordia where it started6,249 ha reached on 21 Apr2.9 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 0.18 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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
Several official records match this area
According to CONAFOR, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 4,965 ha (the satellite measured 6,210 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.
- 1 Concordia PLANATAR DEL TESGUINO 21 April 2024 3,051 ha · extinguished on 16 May 2024 · cause: unknown
- 2 Concordia Platanar del tesguino 23 April 2024 1,913 ha · extinguished on 23 May 2024 · cause: arson
Total according to CONAFOR: 4,965 ha, 80 % of the 6,210 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 Apr | 33.4 °C | 26 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 22 Apr | 33.5 °C | 24 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 23 Apr | 33.2 °C | 24 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 24 Apr | 33.9 °C | 22 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 25 Apr | 33.1 °C | 23 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 26 Apr | 31.2 °C | 28 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 27 Apr | 31.3 °C | 24 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 28 Apr | 31.6 °C | 27 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 29 Apr | 32.6 °C | 26 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 30 Apr | 31.6 °C | 26 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 1 May | 31.7 °C | 29 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 2 May | 31.4 °C | 28 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 3 May | 32.2 °C | 34 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 4 May | 32.1 °C | 33 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 5 May | 34.7 °C | 31 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 6 May | 32.6 °C | 32 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 7 May | 31.0 °C | 29 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 8 May | 34.3 °C | 26 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 9 May | 35.7 °C | 24 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 10 May | 38.1 °C | 20 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 11 May | 34.5 °C | 34 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 12 May after | 32.8 °C | 36 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 13 May after | 32.2 °C | 32 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 14 May after | 32.1 °C | 37 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 15 May after | 33.8 °C | 29 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 16 May after | 33.6 °C | 26 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 17 May after | 33.2 °C | 29 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 18 May after | 33.2 °C | 39 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 19 May after | 34.1 °C | 39 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 20 May after | 33.6 °C | 39 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 21 May after | 33.9 °C | 37 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
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 1 May 2024 the air beside the fire reached 25 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 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 · 625Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 3,518 haMazatlánFebruary 2025 · 37 days · 14 km away
- 14,538 haConcordiaMay 2025 · 29 days · 18 km away
- 5,866 haSan IgnacioApril 2021 · 13 days · 23 km away
- 22,280 haSan Ignacio20 April 2019 · 41 days · 27 km away
- 3,786 haSan Ignacio9 May 2018 · 18 days · 30 km away
- 10,267 haSan Ignacio10 May 2018 · 29 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Concordia fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 21 April 2024 to 11 May 2024 (21 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 April 2024 to 4 May 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,210 hectares (62.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Concordia (6,249 ha, 2.9 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.1 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.
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
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 21 April 2024 to 4 May 2024. 625 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with CONAFOR: 4,965 official ha against 6,210 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 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.