Manzanillo fire, May 2024 Manzanillo
The fire started on 19 May 2024 in Manzanillo, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,525 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
Number 284 in Mexico in 2024, of 289.
The power measured by the satellite is low (26.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 1,525ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 19 May 2024 – 23 May 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 19 May
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 107
- in a single hotspot: 26 MW
- Danger at start
- 18
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 140MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Manzanillo where it started1,533 ha1.1 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 1.1 hectares of built-up land and about 60 residents (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 18 May 2024 and burned 1,045 ha (the satellite measured 1,525 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.
- Manzanillo EJIDO EL PETATERO 18 May 2024 1,045 ha · extinguished on 26 May 2024 · cause: arson
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 May | 27.6 °C | 49 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 20 May | 27.9 °C | 52 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 21 May | 27.0 °C | 58 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 22 May | 28.2 °C | 57 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 23 May | 27.8 °C | 41 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 24 May after | 26.4 °C | 57 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 25 May after | 26.8 °C | 62 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 26 May after | 26.8 °C | 61 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 27 May after | 27.2 °C | 57 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 28 May after | 28.4 °C | 47 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 29 May after | 28.9 °C | 45 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 30 May after | 28.1 °C | 45 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 31 May after | 28.1 °C | 46 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 1 Jun after | 27.1 °C | 60 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 2 Jun after | 28.2 °C | 63 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 21 May 2024 the air beside the fire reached 94 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 65: 4.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 107Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 6,165 haCuautitlán de García Barragán21 May 2024 · 10 days · 23 km away
- 4,446 haCuautitlán de García Barragán12 May 2016 · 29 days · 24 km away
- 3,116 haCuautitlán de García Barragán17 May 2016 · 26 days · 25 km away
- 4,357 haCuautitlán de García Barragán10 May 2024 · 20 days · 30 km away
- 3,240 haCuautitlán de García Barragán29 April 2017 · 19 days · 31 km away
- 5,569 haCuautitlán de García Barragán23 April 2016 · 13 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Manzanillo fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 May 2024 and 23 May 2024: 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 1,525 hectares (15.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Manzanillo (1,533 ha, 1.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 28.2 °C, humidity dropped to 41 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 21, class Moderate.
- 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.
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
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. 107 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with CONAFOR: 1,045 official ha against 1,525 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.
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.