How long did the Del Nayar fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 15 May 2018 to 31 May 2018 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 May 2018 to 30 May 2018.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,013 hectares (60.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: La Yesca (4,058 ha, 0.9 %); Del Nayar (1,976 ha, 0.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.6 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 49 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 · 2018-05-15 → 2018-05-31

Del Nayar fire, 15 May 2018 La Yesca, Del Nayar

Out · last detection 31 May 2018, 20:02 UTC

The fire started on 15 May 2018 in Del Nayar, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,013 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 22th largest in Nayarit since 2016 (of 181 with a page). Number 28 in Mexico in 2018, of 233.

Compare with…

Suggestions: La Yesca · 2016 Del Nayar · 2024 La Yesca · 2025 La Yesca · 2019

Burnt area: 6,013ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 17days; 15 May 2018 – 31 May 2018
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 15 May; 2018
Heat detections: 316; in a single hotspot: 53 MW
Danger at start: 26; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 135MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 May31 May

Play back 31 May 2018

How it evolved, day by day

15 May 18 May 21 May 23 May 24 May 27 May 30 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

32°high

49km/h · peak gust

8%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 4 Jun.

This area had burned before

39% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,369 ha in 2016.

2,369 ha La Yesca fire, May 2016 2,389 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 3.8% of the area of London (60 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

La Yesca

4,058 ha reached on 19 May

0.9 %
Del Nayar where it started

1,976 ha reached on 15 May

0.4 %

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 area3.2 ha

Residents≈ 250

Inside the perimeter there were about 3.2 hectares of built-up land and about 250 residents (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 20 May 2018 and burned 2,621 ha (the satellite measured 6,013 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

La Yesca El Roble 20 May 2018 2,621 ha · extinguished on 1 June 2018 · 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)
15 May	30.5 °C	21 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
16 May	30.4 °C	22 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
17 May	31.2 °C	23 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
18 May	30.4 °C	16 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
19 May	28.7 °C	13 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
20 May	28.5 °C	8 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
21 May	29.7 °C	12 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
22 May	29.9 °C	13 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
23 May	30.6 °C	17 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
24 May	31.3 °C	15 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
25 May	30.1 °C	20 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
26 May	30.4 °C	29 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
27 May	29.5 °C	33 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
28 May	29.6 °C	35 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
29 May	28.9 °C	39 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
30 May	31.6 °C	26 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
31 May	30.9 °C	35 %	44 km/h	0.5 mm	High 30
1 Jun after	31.9 °C	35 %	50 km/h	0.7 mm	High 26
2 Jun after	31.9 °C	27 %	45 km/h	0.7 mm	High 29
3 Jun after	30.1 °C	33 %	48 km/h	0.6 mm	High 28
4 Jun after	30.0 °C	36 %	44 km/h	1.3 mm	Moderate 19

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 8 May 2018

After · 7 Jun 2018

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 · 316Every 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 Del Nayar fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 15 May 2018 to 31 May 2018 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 May 2018 to 30 May 2018.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,013 hectares (60.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: La Yesca (4,058 ha, 0.9 %); Del Nayar (1,976 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.6 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 49 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

25 October 2026 Last day with fire: 30 May 2018 → 31 May 2018.
25 October 2026 Start date: 16 May 2018 → 15 May 2018.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

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What really happened?

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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.

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 16 May 2018 to 30 May 2018. 316 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
Compared with CONAFOR: 2,621 official ha against 6,013 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