Skip to content
worldfires
MX · Mexico · →

San Ignacio fire, 18 April 2024 San Ignacio, San Dimas

Out · last detection 26 Apr 2024, 19:20 UTC

The fire started on 18 April 2024 in San Ignacio, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,478 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities. According to CONAFOR, it was detected on 18 April 2024 and declared extinguished on 26 April 2024.

It is the 21th largest in Sinaloa since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 62 in Mexico in 2024, of 289.

Burnt area
4,478ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
18 Apr 2024 – 25 Apr 2024
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
18 Apr
2024
Heat detections
298
in a single hotspot: 31 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Apr 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Apr25 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

181920212223242526

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
55km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 59 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 342 ha in 2018, 4,167 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,280 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. San Ignacio where it started
    4,283 ha reached on 17 Apr
    0.8 %
  2. San Dimas
    217 ha reached on 20 Apr
    0.0 %

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 18 April 2024 and burned 3,655 ha (the satellite measured 4,478 ha).

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 Apr 28.3 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
18 Apr 30.7 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Apr 31.0 °C 19 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
20 Apr 29.6 °C 21 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Apr 30.5 °C 20 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
22 Apr 30.3 °C 20 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Apr 29.7 °C 20 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Apr 30.6 °C 20 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Apr 29.5 °C 20 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Apr after 27.4 °C 24 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Apr after 27.7 °C 19 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
28 Apr after 28.4 °C 21 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
29 Apr after 29.6 °C 20 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Apr after 28.7 °C 16 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 May after 28.6 °C 19 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 May after 28.0 °C 21 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 May after 29.4 °C 24 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 May after 29.0 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 May after 31.8 °C 23 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 May after 29.5 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Apr 2024
After · 2 May 2024

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 28 April 2024 the air beside the fire reached 16 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak16 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1026 µg/m³
Optical depth0.18
16171819202122232425262728
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 · 298Every 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 18 April 2024 and 25 April 2024: 8 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter. According to CONAFOR, it was detected on 18 April 2024 and declared extinguished on 26 April 2024.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,478 hectares (44.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: San Ignacio (4,283 ha, 0.8 %); San Dimas (217 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.0 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.