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Jala fire, March 2022 Jala

Out · last detection 27 Mar 2022, 20:28 UTC

The fire started on 19 March 2022 in Jala, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,086 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 107th largest in Nayarit since 2016 (of 179 with a page). Number 135 in Mexico in 2022, of 235.

Burnt area
2,086ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
19 Mar 2022 – 27 Mar 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
19 Mar
2022
Heat detections
94
in a single hotspot: 39 MW
Danger at start
38
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Mar 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Mar27 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

1921222324252627

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
50km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 39 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

46% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 959 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Jala where it started
    2,095 ha reached on 19 Mar
    4.1 %

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 24 March 2022 and burned 1,207 ha (the satellite measured 2,086 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)
19 Mar 27.9 °C 14 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 Mar 27.3 °C 20 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Mar 25.9 °C 18 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Mar 26.2 °C 13 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Mar 25.8 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Mar 27.3 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
25 Mar 29.0 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Mar 29.1 °C 18 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Mar 27.7 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Mar after 27.1 °C 20 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
29 Mar after 26.9 °C 20 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Mar after 26.2 °C 18 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
31 Mar after 27.1 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Apr after 25.2 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
2 Apr after 27.4 °C 24 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Apr after 28.3 °C 19 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Apr after 26.4 °C 19 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 Apr after 27.1 °C 20 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
6 Apr after 28.5 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Mar 2022
After · 3 Apr 2022

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 · 94Every 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 19 March 2022 and 27 March 2022: 9 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 2,086 hectares (20.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Jala (2,095 ha, 4.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.1 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.