Skip to content
worldfires
MX · Mexico · →

San Ignacio fire, April 2025 San Ignacio

Out · last detection 25 Apr 2025, 20:36 UTC

The fire started on 10 April 2025 in San Ignacio, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,253 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 9th largest in Sinaloa since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 12 in Mexico in 2025, of 167.

Burnt area
9,253ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
10 Apr 2025 – 24 Apr 2025
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
10 Apr
2025
Heat detections
590
in a single hotspot: 226 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Apr 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Apr24 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

10111213141516171819202122232425

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
53km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

25% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,281 ha in 2017, 60 ha in 2023.

What happened to each town

  1. San Ignacio where it started
    9,311 ha reached on 9 Apr
    1.8 %

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)
9 Apr 31.4 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Apr 34.8 °C 10 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 48
11 Apr 34.8 °C 16 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
12 Apr 34.5 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 47
13 Apr 32.8 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 42
14 Apr 33.5 °C 25 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Apr 35.0 °C 25 % 50 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 43
16 Apr 33.2 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.7 mm High 31
17 Apr 34.1 °C 33 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Apr 31.1 °C 37 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Apr 30.9 °C 27 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Apr 32.5 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Apr 31.7 °C 18 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
22 Apr 32.4 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Apr 31.3 °C 19 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Apr 31.8 °C 14 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Apr after 34.0 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Apr after 35.2 °C 16 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
27 Apr after 32.8 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Apr after 33.2 °C 31 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
29 Apr after 31.2 °C 35 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
30 Apr after 33.3 °C 20 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 May after 33.8 °C 13 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 May after 33.7 °C 19 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 May after 33.3 °C 23 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 May after 32.0 °C 23 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 May after 29.7 °C 18 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 May after 29.7 °C 27 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Apr 2025
After · 1 May 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 4 May 2025 the air beside the fire reached 71 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 42: 2.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak71 µg/m³
Days over the guideline19 days
PM1072 µg/m³
Optical depth0.38
7891011121314151617181920212223242526272829301234
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 · 590Every 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 10 April 2025 and 24 April 2025: 15 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 9,253 hectares (92.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered San Ignacio (9,311 ha, 1.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.