How long did the Jala fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 May 2023 and 19 May 2023: 5 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 2,772 hectares (27.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Jala (2,785 ha, 5.5 %); Ixtlán del Río (0 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 29.0 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class 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 · 2023-05-15 → 2023-05-19

Jala fire, 15 May 2023 Jala, Ixtlán del Río

Out · last detection 19 May 2023, 08:40 UTC

The fire started on 15 May 2023 in Jala, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,772 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 68th largest in Nayarit since 2016 (of 179 with a page). Number 116 in Mexico in 2023, of 286.

The power measured by the satellite is low (20.5 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 2,772ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 5days; 15 May 2023 – 19 May 2023
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 15 May; 2023
Heat detections: 116; in a single hotspot: 20 MW
Danger at start: 28; High · FWI index
Energy released: 721MW; sum of detected power

Play back 19 May 2023

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 May19 May

How it evolved, day by day

1516171819

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

49km/h · peak gust

21%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

10% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 270 ha in 2020.

270 ha Jala fire, May 2020 2,941 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Jala where it started

2,785 ha reached on 15 May

5.5 %
Ixtlán del Río

0 ha

0.0 %

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 15 May 2023 and burned 1,987 ha (the satellite measured 2,772 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

Jala Jalpa Grande 15 May 2023 1,987 ha · extinguished on 21 May 2023 · cause: unknown

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)
15 May	27.8 °C	21 %	42 km/h	0.1 mm	High 28
16 May	27.6 °C	26 %	46 km/h	1.2 mm	High 23
17 May	27.3 °C	23 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
18 May	27.7 °C	25 %	45 km/h	0.6 mm	High 30
19 May	29.0 °C	23 %	49 km/h	0.1 mm	High 34
20 May after	25.3 °C	29 %	24 km/h	0.1 mm	High 28
21 May after	29.4 °C	26 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
22 May after	29.3 °C	23 %	42 km/h	0.3 mm	High 35
23 May after	29.9 °C	20 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
24 May after	28.7 °C	20 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
25 May after	28.6 °C	17 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
26 May after	29.9 °C	18 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
27 May after	28.9 °C	24 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
28 May after	27.3 °C	23 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
29 May after	27.4 °C	26 %	46 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 38

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 8 May 2023

After · 26 May 2023

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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 17 May 2023 the air beside the fire reached 167 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 56: 3.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak167 µg/m³

Days over the guideline8 days

PM10239 µg/m³

Optical depth1.10

WHO 15

13141516171819202122

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 116Every 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 Jala fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 May 2023 and 19 May 2023: 5 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 2,772 hectares (27.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Jala (2,785 ha, 5.5 %); Ixtlán del Río (0 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 29.0 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class 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

CONAFOR · Comisión Nacional Forestal ↗
CENAPRED ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned