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San Ignacio fire, June 2020 San Ignacio

Out · last detection 22 Jun 2020, 19:44 UTC

The fire started on 14 June 2020 in San Ignacio, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,546 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 42th largest in Sinaloa since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 98 in Mexico in 2020, of 243.

The power measured by the satellite is low (15.8 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
2,546ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
14 Jun 2020 – 22 Jun 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
14 Jun
2020
Heat detections
139
in a single hotspot: 16 MW
Danger at start
0
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
350MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

22 Jun 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Jun22 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

141516171819202122

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
43km/h · peak gust
40%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.8 mm on 25 Jun.

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
    2,561 ha reached on 14 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)
14 Jun 25.0 °C 56 % 35 km/h 8.9 mm Very low 0
15 Jun 26.8 °C 45 % 37 km/h 1.6 mm Very low 1
16 Jun 27.1 °C 45 % 37 km/h 1.5 mm Very low 2
17 Jun 28.6 °C 41 % 39 km/h 1.0 mm Very low 5
18 Jun 28.8 °C 40 % 41 km/h 0.8 mm Low 7
19 Jun 27.5 °C 43 % 39 km/h 5.7 mm Very low 1
20 Jun 27.3 °C 49 % 38 km/h 2.9 mm Very low 1
21 Jun 26.7 °C 59 % 41 km/h 5.1 mm Very low 0
22 Jun 26.0 °C 57 % 41 km/h 7.8 mm Very low 0
23 Jun after 26.6 °C 46 % 43 km/h 2.2 mm Very low 1
24 Jun after 25.3 °C 55 % 38 km/h 5.0 mm Very low 0
25 Jun after 24.4 °C 61 % 34 km/h 11.8 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Jun 2020
After · 29 Jun 2020

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 · 139Every 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 14 June 2020 and 22 June 2020: 9 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 2,546 hectares (25.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered San Ignacio (2,561 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.8 °C, humidity dropped to 40 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 7, class Low.
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.