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La Yesca fire, 16 May 2017 San Martín de Bolaños, La Yesca, Bolaños

Out · last detection 6 Jun 2017, 20:34 UTC

The fire started on 16 May 2017 in La Yesca, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,474 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the 4th largest in Nayarit since 2016 (of 181 with a page). Number 14 in Mexico in 2017, of 374.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Bolaños · 2016Mezquitic · 2017Bolaños · 2017La Yesca · 2017

Burnt area
12,474ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
22days
16 May 2017 – 6 Jun 2017
Municipalities hit
4
municipalities
Started on
16 May
2017
Heat detections
822
in a single hotspot: 150 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
243MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 May6 Jun
6 Jun 2017

How it evolved, day by day

16 May 2017 · 109 MW · 14 17 May 2017 · 329 MW · 42 18 May 2017 · 850 MW · 79 19 May 2017 · 188 MW · 49 20 May 2017 · 411 MW · 60 21 May 2017 · 708 MW · 93 22 May 2017 · 704 MW · 83 23 May 2017 · 570 MW · 115 24 May 2017 · 295 MW · 67 25 May 2017 · 172 MW · 41 26 May 2017 · 11 MW · 9 28 May 2017 · 62 MW · 19 29 May 2017 · 36 MW · 11 30 May 2017 · 37 MW · 11 31 May 2017 · 72 MW · 17 1 Jun 2017 · 27 MW · 7 2 Jun 2017 · 186 MW · 28 3 Jun 2017 · 130 MW · 30 4 Jun 2017 · 94 MW · 27 5 Jun 2017 · 85 MW · 15 6 Jun 2017 · 20 MW · 5
16 May 18 May 19 May 22 May 25 May 29 May 1 Jun 4 Jun

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
55km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 23 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 7 Jun.

This area had burned before

5% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 584 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 7.9% of the area of London (125 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. San Martín de Bolaños
    4,419 ha reached on 16 May
    6.4 %
  2. La Yesca where it started
    4,069 ha reached on 16 May
    0.9 %
  3. Bolaños
    3,305 ha reached on 23 May
    3.8 %
  4. Chimaltitán
    749 ha reached on 22 May
    1.1 %

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 2015
Built-up area0.27 ha
Residents≈ 40

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.27 hectares of built-up land and about 40 residents (GHSL 2015, 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.

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

Several official records match this area

According to CONAFOR, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 9,949 ha (the satellite measured 12,474 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

CONAFOR records each fire that started at a different time or place separately; the satellite sees a single burned area, so this page groups them together. The numbers on the map show where each one started.

When each one burned

1 6,548 ha 2 3,401 ha
16 May6 Jun
negligence cause unknown or not published
  1. 1 San Martín de Bolaños Rancho Frio 16 May 2017 6,548 ha · extinguished on 7 June 2017 · cause: negligence
  2. 2 La Yesca Puente de Camotlán 16 May 2017 3,401 ha · extinguished on 7 June 2017 · cause: unknown

Total according to CONAFOR: 9,949 ha, 80 % of the 12,474 ha in the satellite perimeter.

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)
16 May 27.5 °C 16 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 May 27.9 °C 14 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 May 27.8 °C 11 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 May 27.4 °C 14 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 May 28.3 °C 15 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 May 29.6 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
22 May 30.3 °C 11 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
23 May 27.9 °C 11 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 May 28.7 °C 14 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 May 28.6 °C 15 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
26 May 30.7 °C 17 % 49 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 48
27 May 29.3 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 May 28.1 °C 21 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 May 28.9 °C 19 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
30 May 28.4 °C 16 % 45 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 43
31 May 27.2 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.3 mm High 38
1 Jun 28.8 °C 20 % 49 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 38
2 Jun 28.6 °C 15 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
3 Jun 27.6 °C 15 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Jun 28.7 °C 14 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Jun 28.9 °C 17 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Jun 28.9 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Jun after 28.3 °C 26 % 32 km/h 2.5 mm Moderate 13

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 May 2017
After · 13 Jun 2017

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 · 822Every 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 Yesca fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 May 2017 and 6 June 2017: 22 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 12,474 hectares (124.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: San Martín de Bolaños (4,419 ha, 6.4 %); La Yesca (4,069 ha, 0.9 %); Bolaños (3,305 ha, 3.8 %); Chimaltitán (749 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.7 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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 · 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.

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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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 822 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with CONAFOR: 9,949 official ha against 12,474 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 2015, 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.