How long did the Hostotipaquillo fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 3 May 2022 to 26 May 2022 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 9 May 2022 to 20 May 2022. According to CONAFOR, the largest of the 9 recorded fires was detected on 13 May 2022 and declared extinguished on 14 May 2022.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,555 hectares (45.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Hostotipaquillo (3,863 ha, 5.1 %); Magdalena (703 ha, 2.4 %); Ixtlán del Río (9 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 32.7 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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 · 2022-05-03 → 2022-05-26

Hostotipaquillo fire, May 2022 Hostotipaquillo, Magdalena, Ixtlán del Río

Out · last detection 26 May 2022, 20:02 UTC

The fire started on 3 May 2022 in Hostotipaquillo, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,555 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities. According to CONAFOR, the largest of the 9 recorded fires was detected on 13 May 2022 and declared extinguished on 14 May 2022.

It is the 42th largest in Jalisco since 2016 (of 283 with a page). Number 33 in Mexico in 2022, of 232.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Hostotipaquillo · 2017 Hostotipaquillo · 2026 Amatlán de Cañas · 2021 Ixtlán del Río · 2023

Burnt area: 4,555ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 24days; 3 May 2022 – 26 May 2022
Municipalities hit: 3; municipalities
Started on: 3 May; 2022
Heat detections: 298; in a single hotspot: 49 MW
Danger at start: 44; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 109MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 May26 May

Play back 26 May 2022

How it evolved, day by day

5 May 10 May 13 May 16 May 19 May 22 May 25 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

33°high

60km/h · peak gust

13%lowest humidity

It had gone 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 4 Jun.

This area had burned before

67% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,050 ha in 2017.

3,050 ha Hostotipaquillo fire, March 2017 25,730 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 2.9% of the area of London (46 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

Hostotipaquillo where it started

3,863 ha reached on 5 May

5.1 %
Magdalena

703 ha reached on 12 May

2.4 %
Ixtlán del Río

9 ha reached on 20 May

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 2020

Built-up area0.47 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.47 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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

Complex of 9 fires according to CONAFOR

According to CONAFOR, 9 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 4,002 ha (the satellite measured 4,555 ha).

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

1 286 ha 2 842 ha 3 1,570 ha 4 407 ha 5 168 ha 6 359 ha 7 145 ha 8 141 ha 9 85 ha

9 May22 May

cause unknown or not published arson negligence

1 Hostotipaquillo Las Barranquitas 9 May 2022 286 ha · extinguished on 10 May 2022 · cause: unknown
2 Hostotipaquillo Cerro de la Mora 2 11 May 2022 842 ha · extinguished on 13 May 2022 · cause: arson
3 Hostotipaquillo Charco Azul 13 May 2022 1,570 ha · extinguished on 14 May 2022 · cause: unknown
4 Hostotipaquillo Las Bocas 15 May 2022 407 ha · extinguished on 15 May 2022 · cause: unknown
5 Hostotipaquillo Agua Blanca 16 May 2022 168 ha · extinguished on 17 May 2022 · cause: unknown
6 Hostotipaquillo Cerro de la Mora 2 19 May 2022 359 ha · extinguished on 20 May 2022 · cause: arson
7 Hostotipaquillo Juego de Bolas 20 May 2022 145 ha · extinguished on 20 May 2022 · cause: unknown
8 Hostotipaquillo Juego de Bolas 2 21 May 2022 141 ha · extinguished on 22 May 2022 · cause: arson
9 Ixtlán del Río Ranchos de Arriba 21 May 2022 85 ha · extinguished on 23 May 2022 · cause: negligence

Total according to CONAFOR: 4,002 ha, 88 % of the 4,555 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)
4 May	28.9 °C	17 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
5 May	29.2 °C	22 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
6 May	30.2 °C	20 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
7 May	29.7 °C	19 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
8 May	29.8 °C	17 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
9 May	31.4 °C	17 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
10 May	31.6 °C	20 %	48 km/h	0.3 mm	Very high 44
11 May	32.2 °C	22 %	51 km/h	0.8 mm	High 37
12 May	32.7 °C	20 %	60 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
13 May	28.8 °C	29 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
14 May	30.0 °C	25 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
15 May	31.5 °C	17 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
16 May	30.4 °C	22 %	50 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 43
17 May	28.9 °C	29 %	43 km/h	0.2 mm	High 38
18 May	28.8 °C	22 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
19 May	29.1 °C	16 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
20 May	27.9 °C	22 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
21 May	28.7 °C	20 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
22 May	30.1 °C	18 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
23 May	28.7 °C	17 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
24 May	28.9 °C	16 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
25 May	30.6 °C	13 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
26 May	32.4 °C	15 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
27 May after	32.5 °C	15 %	52 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 49
28 May after	31.2 °C	19 %	56 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 47
29 May after	29.4 °C	27 %	53 km/h	0.5 mm	Very high 42
30 May after	29.2 °C	19 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
31 May after	30.1 °C	18 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
1 Jun after	28.8 °C	27 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
2 Jun after	29.1 °C	30 %	45 km/h	0.3 mm	Very high 38
3 Jun after	28.2 °C	33 %	45 km/h	0.6 mm	High 29
4 Jun after	29.6 °C	31 %	46 km/h	1.7 mm	Moderate 19

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 26 Apr 2022

After · 2 Jun 2022

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 · 298Every 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 Hostotipaquillo fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 3 May 2022 to 26 May 2022 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 9 May 2022 to 20 May 2022. According to CONAFOR, the largest of the 9 recorded fires was detected on 13 May 2022 and declared extinguished on 14 May 2022.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,555 hectares (45.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Hostotipaquillo (3,863 ha, 5.1 %); Magdalena (703 ha, 2.4 %); Ixtlán del Río (9 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 32.7 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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 9 May 2022 to 20 May 2022. 298 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
Compared with CONAFOR: 4,002 official ha against 4,555 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
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