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San Ignacio fire, 27 May 2023 San Ignacio

Out · last detection 9 Jun 2023, 19:59 UTC

The fire started on 27 May 2023 in San Ignacio, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,407 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 23th largest in Sinaloa since 2016 (of 82 with a page). Number 55 in Mexico in 2023, of 285.

Compare with…

Suggestions: San Ignacio · 2020San Ignacio · 2025San Ignacio · 2025San Ignacio · 2018

Burnt area
4,407ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
27 May 2023 – 9 Jun 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
27 May
2023
Heat detections
240
in a single hotspot: 45 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Average daily power
86MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 May9 Jun
9 Jun 2023

How it evolved, day by day

27 May 2023 · 109 MW · 4 28 May 2023 · 202 MW · 16 29 May 2023 · 188 MW · 45 30 May 2023 · 112 MW · 28 31 May 2023 · 95 MW · 13 1 Jun 2023 · 110 MW · 17 2 Jun 2023 · 4 MW · 3 3 Jun 2023 · 106 MW · 29 4 Jun 2023 · 173 MW · 51 5 Jun 2023 · 42 MW · 16 6 Jun 2023 · 24 MW · 5 7 Jun 2023 · 20 MW · 3 8 Jun 2023 · 22 MW · 8 9 Jun 2023 · 4 MW · 2
27 May 28 May 29 May 31 May 2 Jun 4 Jun 6 Jun 8 Jun

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
54km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 41 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

53% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,335 ha in 2020.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.8% of the area of London (44 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 Ignacio where it started
    4,433 ha reached on 27 May
    0.9 %

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 2025
Built-up area0.10 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.10 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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 2,405 ha (the satellite measured 4,407 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 1,091 ha 2 1,313 ha
28 May9 Jun
cause unknown or not published
  1. 1 San Ignacio El Candelero 28 May 2023 1,091 ha · extinguished on 5 June 2023 · cause: unknown
  2. 2 San Ignacio La Caña 29 May 2023 1,313 ha · extinguished on 10 June 2023 · cause: unknown

Total according to CONAFOR: 2,405 ha, 55 % of the 4,407 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)
27 May 28.3 °C 29 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 May 26.5 °C 25 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
29 May 26.9 °C 25 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
30 May 28.1 °C 25 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
31 May 29.0 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Jun 28.4 °C 37 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
2 Jun 30.6 °C 32 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
3 Jun 28.9 °C 31 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Jun 30.2 °C 25 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
5 Jun 29.9 °C 38 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
6 Jun 28.1 °C 37 % 46 km/h 0.4 mm High 32
7 Jun 28.5 °C 36 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
8 Jun 28.8 °C 33 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Jun 31.3 °C 25 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Jun after 30.9 °C 33 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Jun after 31.7 °C 33 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
12 Jun after 32.4 °C 29 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Jun after 34.5 °C 23 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Jun after 32.8 °C 31 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Jun after 31.7 °C 46 % 40 km/h 0.3 mm High 29
16 Jun after 30.5 °C 41 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
17 Jun after 31.3 °C 35 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
18 Jun after 31.5 °C 31 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
19 Jun after 30.8 °C 37 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 31

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 May 2023
After · 16 Jun 2023

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 6 June 2023 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak23 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1033 µg/m³
Optical depth0.45
25262728293031123456789101112
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 240Every 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 27 May 2023 and 9 June 2023: 14 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 4,407 hectares (44.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered San Ignacio (4,433 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.3 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 240 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with CONAFOR: 2,405 official ha against 4,407 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 2025, 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.