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Jala fire, April 2016 Jala, Ixtlán del Río

Out · last detection 4 May 2016, 08:45 UTC

The fire started on 28 April 2016 in Jala, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,602 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 165th largest in Nayarit since 2016 (of 179 with a page). Number 182 in Mexico in 2016, of 208.

Burnt area
1,602ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
28 Apr 2016 – 4 May 2016
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
28 Apr
2016
Heat detections
93
in a single hotspot: 122 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 May 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Apr4 May

How it evolved, day by day

28291234

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
54km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 11 May.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Jala where it started
    882 ha reached on 28 Apr
    1.7 %
  2. Ixtlán del Río
    728 ha reached on 28 Apr
    1.5 %

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)
28 Apr 28.3 °C 13 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Apr 26.5 °C 15 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Apr 27.6 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 May 28.9 °C 10 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
2 May 32.5 °C 10 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 May 31.7 °C 13 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
4 May 31.9 °C 12 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 May after 32.0 °C 14 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
6 May after 32.3 °C 15 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
7 May after 30.5 °C 20 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 May after 29.8 °C 25 % 50 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 42
9 May after 27.7 °C 35 % 45 km/h 0.6 mm High 31
10 May after 28.2 °C 33 % 43 km/h 0.6 mm High 28
11 May after 30.2 °C 26 % 48 km/h 1.5 mm High 23

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Apr 2016
After · 11 May 2016

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 · 93Every 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 Jala fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 April 2016 and 4 May 2016: 7 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 1,602 hectares (16.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Jala (882 ha, 1.7 %); Ixtlán del Río (728 ha, 1.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.5 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % 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

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
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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.