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Madera fire, April 2025 Madera, Casas Grandes, Ignacio Zaragoza

Out · last detection 30 May 2025, 08:25 UTC

The fire started on 29 April 2025 in Madera, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 32 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 51,926 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in Chihuahua since 2016 (of 235 with a page). The largest in Mexico in 2025, of 167.

Burnt area
51,926ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
32days
29 Apr 2025 – 30 May 2025
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
29 Apr
2025
Heat detections
4,938
in a single hotspot: 351 MW
Danger at start
59
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
70.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

30 May 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Apr30 May

How it evolved, day by day

2930123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930

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
81km/h · peak gust
4%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.0 mm on 31 May.

This area had burned before

35% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 17,788 ha in 2018, 435 ha in 2024.

What happened to each town

  1. Madera where it started
    30,625 ha reached on 28 Apr
    3.5 %
  2. Casas Grandes
    21,445 ha reached on 5 May
    5.7 %
  3. Ignacio Zaragoza
    54 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.

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)
29 Apr 20.6 °C 11 % 71 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
30 Apr 22.5 °C 6 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
1 May 24.1 °C 5 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
2 May 23.7 °C 6 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
3 May 23.6 °C 6 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
4 May 20.6 °C 11 % 77 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
5 May 15.5 °C 27 % 81 km/h 2.0 mm Moderate 19
6 May 17.2 °C 21 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
7 May 22.2 °C 13 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 May 24.7 °C 13 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 May 24.3 °C 17 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 May 23.1 °C 15 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 May 27.3 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 May 26.8 °C 15 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
13 May 26.1 °C 17 % 73 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
14 May 23.7 °C 17 % 81 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
15 May 24.0 °C 11 % 78 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
16 May 25.2 °C 7 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
17 May 24.3 °C 14 % 74 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
18 May 23.8 °C 8 % 77 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
19 May 23.1 °C 12 % 66 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
20 May 28.3 °C 7 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
21 May 30.6 °C 8 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
22 May 31.9 °C 8 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
23 May 30.5 °C 9 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
24 May 27.8 °C 7 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
25 May 26.3 °C 7 % 66 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
26 May 26.4 °C 5 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
27 May 27.7 °C 6 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
28 May 30.1 °C 5 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
29 May 30.2 °C 4 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
30 May 27.3 °C 15 % 39 km/h 1.3 mm High 35
31 May after 25.6 °C 31 % 41 km/h 4.0 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Apr 2025
After · 6 Jun 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 28 May 2025 the air beside the fire reached 112 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 40: 2.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak112 µg/m³
Days over the guideline16 days
PM10117 µg/m³
Optical depth1.02
272829301234567891011121314151617181920212223242526272829303112
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 · 4,938Every 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 Madera fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 April 2025 and 30 May 2025: 32 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 51,926 hectares (519.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Madera (30,625 ha, 3.5 %); Casas Grandes (21,445 ha, 5.7 %); Ignacio Zaragoza (54 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.9 °C, humidity dropped to 4 % and gusts hit 81 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 71, class Very extreme.
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.