How long did the Guachinango fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 June 2023 and 12 June 2023: 5 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 1,966 hectares (19.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Guachinango (1,975 ha, 2.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 34.0 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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.

MX · Mexico · 2023-06-08 → 2023-06-12

Guachinango fire, June 2023 Guachinango

Out · last detection 12 Jun 2023, 09:30 UTC

The fire started on 8 June 2023 in Guachinango, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,966 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 202th largest in Jalisco since 2016 (of 283 with a page). Number 186 in Mexico in 2023, of 286.

Burnt area: 1,966ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 5days; 8 Jun 2023 – 12 Jun 2023
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 8 Jun; 2023
Heat detections: 101; in a single hotspot: 210 MW
Danger at start: 46; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 2.2GW; sum of detected power

Play back 12 Jun 2023

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Jun12 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

89101112

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

The weather it burned in

34°high

58km/h · peak gust

13%lowest humidity

It had gone 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

19% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 364 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

Guachinango where it started

1,975 ha reached on 8 Jun

2.3 %

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, this fire started on 10 June 2023 and burned 885 ha (the satellite measured 1,966 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

Guachinango Casa Blanca 10 June 2023 885 ha · extinguished on 12 June 2023 · cause: arson

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)
8 Jun	31.3 °C	16 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
9 Jun	32.1 °C	19 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
10 Jun	32.3 °C	17 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
11 Jun	34.0 °C	13 %	58 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
12 Jun	33.3 °C	20 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
13 Jun after	37.0 °C	14 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
14 Jun after	35.2 °C	18 %	57 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
15 Jun after	34.4 °C	19 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
16 Jun after	33.2 °C	27 %	52 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 44
17 Jun after	32.6 °C	25 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
18 Jun after	31.9 °C	25 %	49 km/h	0.3 mm	Very high 44
19 Jun after	33.7 °C	24 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
20 Jun after	34.7 °C	22 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
21 Jun after	35.0 °C	23 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
22 Jun after	34.9 °C	21 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 1 Jun 2023

After · 19 Jun 2023

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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 8 June 2023 the air beside the fire reached 81 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 29: 1.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak81 µg/m³

Days over the guideline6 days

PM10116 µg/m³

Optical depth0.37

WHO 15

6789101112131415

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 · 101Every 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 Guachinango fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 June 2023 and 12 June 2023: 5 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 1,966 hectares (19.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Guachinango (1,975 ha, 2.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 34.0 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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

CONAFOR · Comisión Nacional Forestal ↗
CENAPRED ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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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Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

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.

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