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Jala fire, April 2025 Jala, Ixtlán del Río

Out · last detection 2 May 2025, 08:52 UTC

The fire started on 27 April 2025 in Jala, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,343 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 86th largest in Nayarit since 2016 (of 179 with a page). Number 92 in Mexico in 2025, of 167.

Burnt area
2,343ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
27 Apr 2025 – 1 May 2025
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
27 Apr
2025
Heat detections
103
in a single hotspot: 112 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 May 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Apr1 May

How it evolved, day by day

2728293012

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
58km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

39% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 925 ha in 2023.

What happened to each town

  1. Jala where it started
    1,283 ha reached on 26 Apr
    2.5 %
  2. Ixtlán del Río
    1,073 ha reached on 27 Apr
    2.2 %

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)
26 Apr 30.6 °C 17 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
27 Apr 29.1 °C 17 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Apr 27.9 °C 18 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Apr 26.8 °C 20 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
30 Apr 28.2 °C 19 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 May 27.6 °C 19 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
2 May after 27.3 °C 19 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
3 May after 27.3 °C 17 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 May after 27.8 °C 19 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 May after 26.7 °C 20 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 May after 25.9 °C 21 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 May after 28.1 °C 18 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 May after 30.4 °C 15 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 May after 31.3 °C 10 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 May after 29.8 °C 20 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 May after 28.5 °C 19 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 May after 28.2 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
13 May after 29.2 °C 17 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Apr 2025
After · 8 May 2025

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 1 May 2025 the air beside the fire reached 121 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 51: 3.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak121 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM10123 µg/m³
Optical depth0.39
2526272829301234
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 · 103Every 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 27 April 2025 and 1 May 2025: 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 2,343 hectares (23.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Jala (1,283 ha, 2.5 %); Ixtlán del Río (1,073 ha, 2.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.6 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.

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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.