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San Ignacio fire, 19 May 2019 San Ignacio

Out · last detection 26 May 2019, 20:54 UTC

The fire started on 19 May 2019 in San Ignacio, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,870 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 14th largest in Sinaloa since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 51 in Mexico in 2019, of 364.

Burnt area
5,870ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
19 May 2019 – 26 May 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
19 May
2019
Heat detections
312
in a single hotspot: 89 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 May 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 May26 May

How it evolved, day by day

1920212223242526

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
46km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

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.

What happened to each town

  1. San Ignacio where it started
    5,908 ha reached on 17 May
    1.2 %

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.

Official record

According to CONAFOR, this fire started on 16 May 2019 and burned 7,374 ha (the satellite measured 5,870 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)
17 May 28.7 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
18 May 29.6 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
19 May 31.2 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 May 31.4 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 May 31.5 °C 13 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
22 May 31.4 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 May 32.6 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 May 32.4 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 May 33.3 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 May 32.1 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
27 May after 31.1 °C 35 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 May after 29.5 °C 41 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
29 May after 32.1 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
30 May after 31.0 °C 37 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
31 May after 29.4 °C 40 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
1 Jun after 28.1 °C 48 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
2 Jun after 29.9 °C 45 % 37 km/h 0.4 mm High 26
3 Jun after 29.1 °C 49 % 35 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 20
4 Jun after 30.4 °C 47 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
5 Jun after 29.5 °C 41 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 25

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 May 2019
After · 2 Jun 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 · 312Every 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 Ignacio fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 May 2019 and 26 May 2019: 8 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 5,870 hectares (58.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered San Ignacio (5,908 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.3 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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

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.