How long did the Coquimatlán fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 April 2016 to 9 May 2016 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 26 April 2016 to 6 May 2016.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,008 hectares (40.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Coquimatlán (3,603 ha, 6.8 %); Manzanillo (419 ha, 0.3 %); Armería (7 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 28.5 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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 · 2016-04-26 → 2016-05-09

Coquimatlán fire, April 2016 Coquimatlán, Manzanillo, Armería

Out · last detection 9 May 2016, 08:52 UTC

The fire started on 26 April 2016 in Coquimatlán, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,008 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

Number 32 in Mexico in 2016, of 204.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Villa de Álvarez · 2024 Cuautitlán de García Barragán · 2017 Cuautitlán de García Barragán · 2016 Cuautitlán de García Barragán · 2024

Burnt area: 4,008ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 14days; 26 Apr 2016 – 9 May 2016
Municipalities hit: 3; municipalities
Started on: 26 Apr; 2016
Heat detections: 206; in a single hotspot: 33 MW
Danger at start: 41; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 59MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Apr9 May

Play back 9 May 2016

How it evolved, day by day

26 Apr 28 Apr 30 Apr 2 May 4 May 6 May 9 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

28°high

53km/h · peak gust

14%lowest humidity

It had gone 33 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.7 mm on 12 May.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 2.5% of the area of London (40 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

Coquimatlán 20,837 inhabitants where it started

3,603 ha reached on 26 Apr

6.8 %
Manzanillo

419 ha reached on 1 May

0.3 %
Armería 27,626 inhabitants

7 ha

0.0 %

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 2015

Built-up area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, 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, 4 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 1,371 ha (the satellite measured 4,008 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 35 ha 2 9 ha 3 650 ha 4 677 ha

21 Apr4 May

negligence cause unknown or not published

1 Coquimatlán COLOMO Y MEDIA LUNA 21 April 2016 35 ha · extinguished on 22 April 2016 · cause: negligence
2 Manzanillo LA ROSA DE SAN JOSÉ LUMBER 24 April 2016 9 ha · extinguished on 25 April 2016 · cause: negligence
3 Coquimatlán EL COLOMO 28 April 2016 650 ha · extinguished on 2 May 2016 · cause: unknown
4 Coquimatlán LA SIDRA 4 May 2016 677 ha · extinguished on 5 May 2016 · cause: unknown

Total according to CONAFOR: 1,371 ha, 34 % of the 4,008 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)
26 Apr	28.5 °C	14 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
27 Apr	27.6 °C	26 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
28 Apr	27.2 °C	21 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
29 Apr	26.2 °C	21 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
30 Apr	25.0 °C	36 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
1 May	26.8 °C	30 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
2 May	27.0 °C	40 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
3 May	26.4 °C	45 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
4 May	28.3 °C	33 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
5 May	26.9 °C	49 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
6 May	26.8 °C	43 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
7 May	27.4 °C	43 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
8 May	27.3 °C	38 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
9 May	28.1 °C	43 %	42 km/h	0.1 mm	High 26
10 May after	26.8 °C	47 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
11 May after	27.0 °C	49 %	37 km/h	0.1 mm	High 24
12 May after	28.8 °C	38 %	44 km/h	2.7 mm	Low 10

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 19 Apr 2016

After · 16 May 2016

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 · 206Every 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 Coquimatlán fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 April 2016 to 9 May 2016 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 26 April 2016 to 6 May 2016.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,008 hectares (40.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Coquimatlán (3,603 ha, 6.8 %); Manzanillo (419 ha, 0.3 %); Armería (7 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 28.5 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.

RSS Changes to this page

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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 26 April 2016 to 6 May 2016. 206 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
Compared with CONAFOR: 1,371 official ha against 4,008 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 2015, 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