Skip to content
worldfires
MX · Mexico · →

La Yesca fire, 24 April 2026 La Yesca

Out · last detection 10 May 2026, 09:24 UTC

The fire started on 24 April 2026 in La Yesca, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,965 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 3th largest in Nayarit since 2016 (of 179 with a page). Number 3 in Mexico in 2026, of 145.

Burnt area
12,965ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
17days
24 Apr 2026 – 10 May 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
24 Apr
2026
Heat detections
991
in a single hotspot: 184 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
12.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 May 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Apr10 May

How it evolved, day by day

2425262728293012345678910

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
64km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.1 mm on 12 May.

This area had burned before

15% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,971 ha in 2019, 31 ha in 2023.

What happened to each town

  1. La Yesca where it started
    13,006 ha reached on 24 Apr
    3.0 %

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.

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)
24 Apr 27.1 °C 17 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Apr 28.4 °C 13 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Apr 29.6 °C 14 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Apr 30.8 °C 14 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
28 Apr 32.0 °C 16 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
29 Apr 32.1 °C 16 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Apr 31.2 °C 16 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 May 28.2 °C 20 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 May 28.0 °C 21 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
3 May 28.6 °C 19 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 May 28.6 °C 18 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 May 29.3 °C 14 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
6 May 30.1 °C 14 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 May 29.7 °C 19 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 May 28.8 °C 19 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 May 27.9 °C 20 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 May 29.8 °C 16 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 May after 25.4 °C 21 % 29 km/h 0.5 mm High 35
12 May after 27.4 °C 29 % 39 km/h 4.1 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Apr 2026
After · 17 May 2026

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 3 May 2026 the air beside the fire reached 148 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 70: 4.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak148 µg/m³
Days over the guideline18 days
PM10150 µg/m³
Optical depth0.60
22232425262728293012345678910111213
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 · 991Every 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 24 April 2026 and 10 May 2026: 17 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 12,965 hectares (129.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered La Yesca (13,006 ha, 3.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.1 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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
What do you think is wrong?

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.