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San Gabriel fire, May 2019 San Gabriel, Zapotlán el Grande, Sayula

Out · last detection 23 May 2019, 20:08 UTC

The fire started on 2 May 2019 in San Gabriel, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 18,872 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 4th largest in Jalisco since 2016 (of 283 with a page). Number 9 in Mexico in 2019, of 364.

Compare with…

Suggestions: San Gabriel · 2017

Burnt area
18,872ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
22days
2 May 2019 – 23 May 2019
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
2 May
2019
Heat detections
1,389
in a single hotspot: 583 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
1.5GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 May23 May
23 May 2019

How it evolved, day by day

2 May 2019 · 11 MW · 1 3 May 2019 · 103 MW · 15 5 May 2019 · 67 MW · 5 6 May 2019 · 9 MW · 5 7 May 2019 · 1,028 MW · 25 8 May 2019 · 2,659 MW · 71 9 May 2019 · 1,741 MW · 151 10 May 2019 · 6,741 MW · 281 11 May 2019 · 2,553 MW · 179 12 May 2019 · 1,498 MW · 88 13 May 2019 · 5,566 MW · 165 14 May 2019 · 1,976 MW · 140 15 May 2019 · 1,674 MW · 123 16 May 2019 · 1,636 MW · 74 17 May 2019 · 325 MW · 33 18 May 2019 · 102 MW · 10 19 May 2019 · 81 MW · 14 20 May 2019 · 120 MW · 6 23 May 2019 · 23 MW · 3
2 May 6 May 9 May 10 May 12 May 15 May 18 May 23 May

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

29°high
52km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.8 mm on 31 May.

This area had burned before

13% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,399 ha in 2017.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 12% of the area of London (189 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 Gabriel where it started
    13,058 ha reached on 2 May
    17 %
  2. Zapotlán el Grande
    4,277 ha reached on 5 May
    16 %
  3. Sayula
    1,636 ha reached on 8 May
    7.5 %

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 area2.7 ha
Residents≈ 50

Inside the perimeter there were about 2.7 hectares of built-up land and about 50 residents (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

Several official records match this area

According to CONAFOR, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 11,564 ha (the satellite measured 18,872 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

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.

When each one burned

1 107 ha 2 11,456 ha
2 May19 May
negligence
  1. 1 San Gabriel El Anillo 2 May 2019 107 ha · extinguished on 3 May 2019 · cause: negligence
  2. 2 Zapotlán el Grande La Gatera 5 May 2019 11,456 ha · extinguished on 20 May 2019 · cause: negligence

Total according to CONAFOR: 11,564 ha, 61 % of the 18,872 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)
2 May 28.2 °C 14 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 May 26.8 °C 17 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 May 25.4 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 May 25.6 °C 19 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
6 May 24.6 °C 10 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 May 26.4 °C 8 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 May 26.1 °C 9 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
9 May 25.0 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 May 26.8 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 May 27.7 °C 13 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
12 May 25.2 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 May 26.4 °C 14 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 May 27.1 °C 13 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 May 26.5 °C 14 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 May 27.2 °C 16 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 May 27.2 °C 18 % 50 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 43
18 May 25.7 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 May 28.7 °C 13 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 May 27.6 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 May 27.6 °C 15 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 May 27.1 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 May 28.1 °C 13 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 42
24 May after 27.1 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 May after 26.0 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
26 May after 26.0 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.8 mm High 23
27 May after 23.7 °C 46 % 33 km/h 0.4 mm High 23
28 May after 24.7 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
29 May after 25.2 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
30 May after 27.1 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
31 May after 25.6 °C 38 % 37 km/h 7.8 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Apr 2019
After · 30 May 2019

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 · 1,389Every 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 Gabriel fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 2 May 2019 to 23 May 2019 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 May 2019 to 20 May 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 18,872 hectares (188.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: San Gabriel (13,058 ha, 17 %); Zapotlán el Grande (4,277 ha, 16 %); Sayula (1,636 ha, 7.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.7 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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 · 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.

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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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 5 May 2019 to 20 May 2019. 1,389 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with CONAFOR: 11,564 official ha against 18,872 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.