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Cosalá fire, April 2025 Cosalá, Tamazula

Out · last detection 8 May 2025, 19:52 UTC

The fire started on 22 April 2025 in Cosalá, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,917 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 59th largest in Sinaloa since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 123 in Mexico in 2025, of 167.

Burnt area
1,917ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
22 Apr 2025 – 7 May 2025
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
22 Apr
2025
Heat detections
188
in a single hotspot: 32 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 May 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Apr7 May

How it evolved, day by day

222324252628293012345678

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
55km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 days 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.

What happened to each town

  1. Cosalá where it started
    1,895 ha reached on 21 Apr
    0.9 %
  2. Tamazula
    29 ha reached on 8 May
    0.0 %

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.

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)
22 Apr 34.6 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Apr 33.6 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Apr 34.0 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 Apr 35.9 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Apr 36.3 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
27 Apr 34.6 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Apr 35.0 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Apr 33.0 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
30 Apr 35.7 °C 15 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
1 May 36.3 °C 9 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
2 May 36.1 °C 8 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
3 May 35.7 °C 19 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
4 May 33.8 °C 22 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 May 31.7 °C 24 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 May 31.7 °C 25 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 May 34.7 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 May after 36.6 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 May after 37.9 °C 20 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
10 May after 37.6 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 43
11 May after 36.3 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 44
12 May after 35.3 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 May after 36.6 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 May after 36.1 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 May after 38.1 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
16 May after 38.6 °C 18 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 May after 38.0 °C 19 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Apr 2025
After · 14 May 2025

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 · Copernicus

On 4 May 2025 the air beside the fire reached 148 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 73: 4.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak148 µg/m³
Days over the guideline15 days
PM10150 µg/m³
Optical depth0.63
202122232425262728293012345678910
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 188Every 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 Cosalá fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 April 2025 and 7 May 2025: 16 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 1,917 hectares (19.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cosalá (1,895 ha, 0.9 %); Tamazula (29 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, class Extreme.
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
What do you think is wrong?

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.

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.