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San Ignacio fire, May 2022 San Ignacio

Out · last detection 10 May 2022, 08:49 UTC

The fire started on 4 May 2022 in San Ignacio, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,539 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 80th largest in Sinaloa since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 223 in Mexico in 2022, of 235.

The power measured by the satellite is low (28.5 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
1,539ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
4 May 2022 – 10 May 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
4 May
2022
Heat detections
99
in a single hotspot: 28 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
774MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 May 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 May10 May

How it evolved, day by day

45678910

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
61km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 11 May.

This area had burned before

9% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 131 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. San Ignacio where it started
    1,549 ha reached on 4 May
    0.3 %

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 3 May 2022 and burned 654 ha (the satellite measured 1,539 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)
4 May 25.2 °C 21 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
5 May 25.5 °C 22 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 May 27.0 °C 23 % 51 km/h 0.1 mm High 37
7 May 26.2 °C 20 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 May 27.1 °C 18 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
9 May 28.6 °C 21 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
10 May 27.8 °C 22 % 46 km/h 1.4 mm High 23
11 May after 26.3 °C 28 % 44 km/h 2.5 mm Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Apr 2022
After · 17 May 2022

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 · 99Every 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 4 May 2022 and 10 May 2022: 7 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 1,539 hectares (15.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered San Ignacio (1,549 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.6 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 61 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
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.