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San Ignacio fire, December 2024 San Ignacio, Tamazula, Cosalá

Out · last detection 30 Dec 2024, 08:56 UTC

The fire started on 12 December 2024 in San Ignacio, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,242 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 36th largest in Sinaloa since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 98 in Mexico in 2024, of 289.

The power measured by the satellite is low (8.7 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
3,242ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
19days
12 Dec 2024 – 30 Dec 2024
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
12 Dec
2024
Heat detections
185
in a single hotspot: 9 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Energy released
396MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

30 Dec 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Dec30 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

121314151718192021222324252627282930

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

The weather it burned in

27°high
37km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 9.6 mm on 8 Jan.

This area had burned before

70% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,329 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. San Ignacio where it started
    1,610 ha reached on 12 Dec
    0.3 %
  2. Tamazula
    960 ha reached on 15 Dec
    0.2 %
  3. Cosalá
    685 ha reached on 19 Dec
    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, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 4,258 ha (the satellite measured 3,242 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)
12 Dec 23.3 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
13 Dec 24.3 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
14 Dec 27.0 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
15 Dec 26.1 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
16 Dec 23.8 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
17 Dec 24.7 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
18 Dec 24.3 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
19 Dec 25.5 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
20 Dec 26.2 °C 25 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
21 Dec 26.4 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
22 Dec 24.7 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
23 Dec 22.9 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
24 Dec 22.4 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
25 Dec 20.5 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
26 Dec 20.2 °C 36 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
27 Dec 20.9 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
28 Dec 22.3 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
29 Dec 24.4 °C 18 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
30 Dec 24.2 °C 23 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
31 Dec after 23.1 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
1 Jan after 24.0 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
2 Jan after 25.1 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
3 Jan after 24.9 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Jan after 23.2 °C 34 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
5 Jan after 21.7 °C 40 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
6 Jan after 23.2 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
7 Jan after 22.7 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
8 Jan after 19.2 °C 34 % 64 km/h 9.6 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Dec 2024
After · 6 Jan 2025

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

PM2.5 peak15 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1016 µg/m³
Optical depth0.22
1011121314151617181920212223242526272829303112
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 · 185Every 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 12 December 2024 and 30 December 2024: 19 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 3,242 hectares (32.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: San Ignacio (1,610 ha, 0.3 %); Tamazula (960 ha, 0.2 %); Cosalá (685 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.0 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, class 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.