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La Huerta fire, May 2023 La Huerta, Villa Purificación

Out · last detection 31 May 2023, 19:26 UTC

The fire started on 17 May 2023 in La Huerta, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,306 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 150th largest in Jalisco since 2016 (of 283 with a page). Number 146 in Mexico in 2023, of 285.

Compare with…

Suggestions: La Huerta · 2016La Huerta · 2016Casimiro Castillo · 2017Cuautitlán de García Barragán · 2016

Burnt area
2,306ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
17 May 2023 – 31 May 2023
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
17 May
2023
Heat detections
137
in a single hotspot: 196 MW
Danger at start
21
High · FWI index
Average daily power
199MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 May31 May
31 May 2023

How it evolved, day by day

21 May 2023 · 1,407 MW · 16 22 May 2023 · 263 MW · 22 23 May 2023 · 35 MW · 8 24 May 2023 · 29 MW · 9 25 May 2023 · 36 MW · 10 26 May 2023 · 54 MW · 12 27 May 2023 · 67 MW · 15 28 May 2023 · 88 MW · 21 29 May 2023 · 186 MW · 17 30 May 2023 · 23 MW · 6 31 May 2023 · 5 MW · 1
21 May 23 May 25 May 27 May 29 May 31 May

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
46km/h · peak gust
44%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

64% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,466 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.5% of the area of London (23 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. La Huerta where it started
    2,211 ha reached on 21 May
    1.1 %
  2. Villa Purificación
    108 ha reached on 27 May
    0.1 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

Official record

According to CONAFOR, this fire started on 21 May 2023 and burned 1,267 ha (the satellite measured 2,306 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)
17 May 28.9 °C 56 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
18 May 29.1 °C 52 % 38 km/h 0.4 mm High 24
19 May 28.0 °C 55 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
20 May 29.0 °C 53 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
21 May 31.8 °C 44 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
22 May 29.1 °C 58 % 37 km/h 0.5 mm High 22
23 May 28.8 °C 58 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
24 May 28.7 °C 59 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
25 May 28.8 °C 57 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
26 May 29.0 °C 60 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
27 May 28.8 °C 58 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
28 May 28.9 °C 50 % 38 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 21
29 May 29.4 °C 55 % 42 km/h 0.3 mm High 23
30 May 29.4 °C 53 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
31 May 28.8 °C 58 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
1 Jun after 28.4 °C 47 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
2 Jun after 28.6 °C 51 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
3 Jun after 28.0 °C 51 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
4 Jun after 28.3 °C 58 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
5 Jun after 28.9 °C 54 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
6 Jun after 28.3 °C 56 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm High 22
7 Jun after 27.8 °C 58 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
8 Jun after 29.1 °C 55 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
9 Jun after 28.8 °C 56 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
10 Jun after 27.8 °C 63 % 34 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 20

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 May 2023
After · 7 Jun 2023

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 22 May 2023 the air beside the fire reached 206 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 126: 8.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak206 µg/m³
Days over the guideline12 days
PM10295 µg/m³
Optical depth1.45
1920212223242526272829303112
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 · 137Every 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 La Huerta fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 May 2023 to 31 May 2023 (15 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 May 2023 to 30 May 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,306 hectares (23.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: La Huerta (2,211 ha, 1.1 %); Villa Purificación (108 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.8 °C, humidity dropped to 44 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 21 May 2023 to 30 May 2023. 137 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with CONAFOR: 1,267 official ha against 2,306 ha of perimeter; similar, but with reservations.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.