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Jala fire, May 2020 Jala

Out · last detection 29 May 2020, 20:33 UTC

The fire started on 23 May 2020 in Jala, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,941 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 61th largest in Nayarit since 2016 (of 179 with a page). Number 80 in Mexico in 2020, of 243.

Burnt area
2,941ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
23 May 2020 – 29 May 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
23 May
2020
Heat detections
190
in a single hotspot: 54 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
921MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 May 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 May29 May

How it evolved, day by day

23242526272829

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
52km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.4 mm on 30 May.

This area had burned before

7% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 209 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Jala where it started
    2,955 ha reached on 18 May
    5.8 %

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, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 1,724 ha (the satellite measured 2,941 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

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)
18 May 33.0 °C 20 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 May 32.3 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 May 31.7 °C 24 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 May 31.3 °C 26 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
22 May 31.2 °C 24 % 49 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 38
23 May 31.2 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 May 30.4 °C 17 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 May 31.2 °C 16 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 May 31.8 °C 15 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 May 32.6 °C 19 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
28 May 32.3 °C 22 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 May 32.2 °C 24 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 41
30 May after 31.8 °C 25 % 43 km/h 4.4 mm Low 11

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 May 2020
After · 5 Jun 2020

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 · 190Every 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 23 May 2020 and 29 May 2020: 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 2,941 hectares (29.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Jala (2,955 ha, 5.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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
What do you think is wrong?

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.