Ixtlán del Río fire, May 2023 Amatlán de Cañas, Ixtlán del Río
The fire started on 13 May 2023 in Ixtlán del Río, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,486 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities. According to CONAFOR, the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 13 May 2023 and declared extinguished on 28 May 2023.
It is the 9th largest in Nayarit since 2016 (of 181 with a page). Number 13 in Mexico in 2023, of 285.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 9,486ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 15days
- 13 May 2023 – 27 May 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 13 May
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 612
- in a single hotspot: 96 MW
- Danger at start
- 48
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 273MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
70% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3 ha in 2016, 1,710 ha in 2017, 5,844 ha in 2021, 178 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,639 ha that had burned before.
- 5,085 ha Amatlán de Cañas fire, May 2021 12,445 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 759 ha Ixtlán del Río fire, May 2021 6,521 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 276 ha Hostotipaquillo fire, March 2017 25,730 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
8,787 ha reached on 13 May17 %
-
Ixtlán del Río where it started753 ha reached on 13 May1.5 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 0.17 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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
Complex of 2 fires according to CONAFOR
According to CONAFOR, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 8,018 ha (the satellite measured 9,486 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.
- 1 Ixtlán del Río Las Cruces 13 May 2023 7,990 ha · extinguished on 28 May 2023 · cause: unknown
- 2 Amatlán de Cañas Palos Clavados 27 May 2023 28 ha · extinguished on 7 June 2023 · cause: unknown
Total according to CONAFOR: 8,018 ha, 85 % of the 9,486 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 May | 28.2 °C | 13 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 14 May | 28.8 °C | 19 % | 41 km/h | 2.8 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 15 May | 28.4 °C | 23 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 16 May | 28.2 °C | 25 % | 48 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 32 |
| 17 May | 27.6 °C | 25 % | 49 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 31 |
| 18 May | 28.4 °C | 24 % | 45 km/h | 0.8 mm | High 29 |
| 19 May | 29.5 °C | 22 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 20 May | 25.6 °C | 30 % | 29 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 29 |
| 21 May | 29.5 °C | 27 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 22 May | 29.0 °C | 26 % | 44 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 34 |
| 23 May | 30.4 °C | 19 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 24 May | 29.6 °C | 18 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 25 May | 29.4 °C | 16 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 26 May | 30.9 °C | 14 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 27 May | 30.0 °C | 23 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 28 May after | 28.2 °C | 21 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 29 May after | 28.0 °C | 23 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 30 May after | 30.3 °C | 17 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 31 May after | 30.1 °C | 20 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 1 Jun after | 29.9 °C | 24 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 2 Jun after | 32.6 °C | 16 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 3 Jun after | 32.0 °C | 15 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 4 Jun after | 31.3 °C | 19 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 5 Jun after | 30.9 °C | 17 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 6 Jun after | 29.2 °C | 28 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 15 May 2023 the air beside the fire reached 156 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 58: 3.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 612Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ixtlán del Río fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 May 2023 and 27 May 2023: 15 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter. According to CONAFOR, the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 13 May 2023 and declared extinguished on 28 May 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 9,486 hectares (94.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Amatlán de Cañas (8,787 ha, 17 %); Ixtlán del Río (753 ha, 1.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 30.9 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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 ›
Satellite cross-check
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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 612 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with CONAFOR: 8,018 official ha against 9,486 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 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.