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San Ignacio fire, June 2019 San Ignacio

Out · last detection 25 Jun 2019, 08:37 UTC

The fire started on 16 June 2019 in San Ignacio, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,363 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 46th largest in Sinaloa since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 193 in Mexico in 2019, of 364.

The power measured by the satellite is low (15.4 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
2,363ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
16 Jun 2019 – 25 Jun 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
16 Jun
2019
Heat detections
150
in a single hotspot: 15 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
528MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Jun 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Jun25 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

16171819202122232425

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
44km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 29 Jun.

This area had burned before

75% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,776 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. San Ignacio where it started
    2,371 ha reached on 16 Jun
    0.5 %

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.

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)
16 Jun 30.6 °C 42 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
17 Jun 30.9 °C 38 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
18 Jun 31.3 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
19 Jun 31.7 °C 35 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
20 Jun 33.4 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Jun 33.5 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
22 Jun 33.7 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Jun 33.0 °C 27 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Jun 31.1 °C 38 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Jun 31.2 °C 35 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Jun after 30.6 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
27 Jun after 33.3 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
28 Jun after 32.2 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Jun after 31.6 °C 40 % 36 km/h 1.6 mm Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Jun 2019
After · 2 Jul 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 · 150Every 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 16 June 2019 and 25 June 2019: 10 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 2,363 hectares (23.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered San Ignacio (2,371 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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
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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.

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.