San Dimas fire, June 2024 San Dimas, San Ignacio, Tamazula
The fire started on 7 June 2024 in San Dimas, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,658 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities. According to CONAFOR, the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 6 June 2024 and declared extinguished on 20 June 2024.
It is the 45th largest in Durango since 2016 (of 239 with a page). Number 56 in Mexico in 2024, of 289.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 4,658ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 16days
- 7 Jun 2024 – 22 Jun 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 7 Jun
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 369
- in a single hotspot: 84 MW
- Danger at start
- 9
- Low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 188MW
- 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 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 19.8 mm on 23 Jun.
This area had burned before
17% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 782 ha in 2016.
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
-
San Dimas where it started3,948 ha reached on 7 Jun0.7 %
-
432 ha reached on 17 Jun0.1 %
-
306 ha reached on 13 Jun0.0 %
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 was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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
Complex of 2 fires according to CONAFOR
According to CONAFOR, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 3,790 ha (the satellite measured 4,658 ha).
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.
- 1 San Dimas Los Laureles Cerro cabezón Las Manzanillas 6 June 2024 3,562 ha · extinguished on 20 June 2024 · cause: unknown
- 2 San Ignacio CALIFORNIA Y ANEXOS 17 June 2024 228 ha · extinguished on 20 June 2024 · cause: unknown
Total according to CONAFOR: 3,790 ha, 81 % of the 4,658 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 Jun | 24.7 °C | 44 % | 43 km/h | 1.4 mm | Low 9 |
| 8 Jun | 23.0 °C | 46 % | 41 km/h | 0.6 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 9 Jun | 24.4 °C | 38 % | 43 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 10 Jun | 23.0 °C | 51 % | 40 km/h | 1.3 mm | Low 9 |
| 11 Jun | 25.9 °C | 40 % | 42 km/h | 2.1 mm | Low 8 |
| 12 Jun | 24.7 °C | 58 % | 45 km/h | 2.2 mm | Low 5 |
| 13 Jun | 24.4 °C | 50 % | 47 km/h | 3.8 mm | Very low 4 |
| 14 Jun | 23.2 °C | 51 % | 44 km/h | 0.4 mm | Low 7 |
| 15 Jun | 22.5 °C | 59 % | 48 km/h | 0.7 mm | Low 9 |
| 16 Jun | 24.1 °C | 54 % | 41 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 17 Jun | 24.4 °C | 48 % | 41 km/h | 1.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 18 Jun | 24.6 °C | 41 % | 48 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 19 Jun | 25.9 °C | 43 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 20 Jun | 25.7 °C | 33 % | 53 km/h | 7.1 mm | Very low 3 |
| 21 Jun | 21.1 °C | 56 % | 46 km/h | 25.6 mm | Very low 0 |
| 22 Jun | 24.2 °C | 37 % | 36 km/h | 19.7 mm | Very low 0 |
| 23 Jun after | 21.3 °C | 62 % | 39 km/h | 19.8 mm | Very low 0 |
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 June 2024 the air beside the fire reached 64 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 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 · 369Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 49,719 haSan IgnacioMarch 2025 · 65 days · 11 km away
- 12,257 haTamazula3 June 2019 · 27 days · 20 km away
- 7,405 haSan Dimas8 May 2024 · 14 days · 21 km away
- 6,068 haTamazula17 May 2019 · 20 days · 24 km away
- 7,103 haOtáezApril 2022 · 19 days · 25 km away
- 9,253 haSan IgnacioApril 2025 · 18 days · 26 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the San Dimas fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 June 2024 and 22 June 2024: 16 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter. According to CONAFOR, the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 6 June 2024 and declared extinguished on 20 June 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,658 hectares (46.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: San Dimas (3,948 ha, 0.7 %); San Ignacio (432 ha, 0.1 %); Tamazula (306 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 25.9 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 19, 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. 369 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with CONAFOR: 3,790 official ha against 4,658 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- 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.