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San Bernardo fire, May 2022 San Bernardo, Guanaceví

Out · last detection 3 Jun 2022, 09:39 UTC

The fire started on 11 May 2022 in San Bernardo, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 19,782 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 3th largest in Durango since 2016 (of 239 with a page). Number 3 in Mexico in 2022, of 232.

Compare with…

Suggestions: San Bernardo · 2018

Burnt area
19,782ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
24days
11 May 2022 – 3 Jun 2022
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
11 May
2022
Heat detections
1,053
in a single hotspot: 329 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
538MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 May3 Jun
3 Jun 2022

How it evolved, day by day

11 May 2022 · 8 MW · 5 12 May 2022 · 796 MW · 29 13 May 2022 · 325 MW · 49 14 May 2022 · 231 MW · 38 15 May 2022 · 292 MW · 32 16 May 2022 · 371 MW · 44 17 May 2022 · 112 MW · 15 18 May 2022 · 234 MW · 57 19 May 2022 · 450 MW · 31 20 May 2022 · 816 MW · 48 21 May 2022 · 381 MW · 55 22 May 2022 · 585 MW · 47 23 May 2022 · 892 MW · 93 24 May 2022 · 1,002 MW · 72 25 May 2022 · 932 MW · 93 26 May 2022 · 1,266 MW · 91 27 May 2022 · 334 MW · 54 28 May 2022 · 7 MW · 5 29 May 2022 · 400 MW · 39 30 May 2022 · 144 MW · 32 31 May 2022 · 247 MW · 34 1 Jun 2022 · 3,022 MW · 78 2 Jun 2022 · 72 MW · 11 3 Jun 2022 · 3 MW · 1
11 May 15 May 19 May 23 May 27 May 31 May 1 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

33°high
66km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days 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?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 12% of the area of London (198 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 Bernardo where it started
    13,003 ha reached on 11 May
    5.6 %
  2. Guanaceví
    6,821 ha reached on 12 May
    1.2 %

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 2020
Built-up area0.45 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.45 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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

According to CONAFOR, this fire started on 11 May 2022 and burned 12,126 ha (the satellite measured 19,782 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)
11 May 29.0 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 May 31.8 °C 15 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
13 May 32.7 °C 9 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 May 30.6 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
15 May 31.2 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
16 May 31.5 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
17 May 29.2 °C 22 % 42 km/h 1.2 mm High 33
18 May 30.5 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 May 30.7 °C 12 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
20 May 27.2 °C 12 % 66 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
21 May 29.6 °C 9 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 May 30.6 °C 11 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
23 May 28.7 °C 10 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
24 May 30.3 °C 6 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
25 May 30.4 °C 7 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
26 May 31.0 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
27 May 30.5 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 57
28 May 30.5 °C 14 % 49 km/h 1.2 mm Very high 44
29 May 29.3 °C 14 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
30 May 32.1 °C 12 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 May 32.7 °C 9 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
1 Jun 32.5 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
2 Jun 30.0 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 42
3 Jun 26.6 °C 30 % 34 km/h 8.2 mm Low 6
4 Jun after 27.8 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
5 Jun after 30.3 °C 21 % 52 km/h 0.5 mm High 38
6 Jun after 31.1 °C 19 % 46 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 41
7 Jun after 31.2 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.4 mm High 35
8 Jun after 30.8 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
9 Jun after 29.9 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 40
10 Jun after 30.1 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 Jun after 31.5 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Jun after 31.8 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Jun after 30.8 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 May 2022
After · 10 Jun 2022

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 · 1,053Every 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 San Bernardo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 May 2022 and 3 June 2022: 24 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 19,782 hectares (197.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: San Bernardo (13,003 ha, 5.6 %); Guanaceví (6,821 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.7 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 66 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, class 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 · 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
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.

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. 1,053 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with CONAFOR: 12,126 official ha against 19,782 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 2020, 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.