Tamazula fire, 30 May 2019 Tamazula, San Ignacio
The fire started on 30 May 2019 in Tamazula, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 31 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,257 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 7th largest in Durango since 2016 (of 239 with a page). Number 20 in Mexico in 2019, of 364.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 12,257ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 31days
- 30 May 2019 – 29 Jun 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 30 May
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 977
- in a single hotspot: 47 MW
- Danger at start
- 34
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 186MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 14.6 mm on 30 Jun.
This area had burned before
29% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,253 ha in 2016, 1,613 ha in 2017, 650 ha in 2018.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Tamazula where it started9,133 ha reached on 30 May1.6 %
-
3,146 ha reached on 7 Jun0.6 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 May | 26.3 °C | 22 % | 48 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 34 |
| 31 May | 25.8 °C | 25 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 1 Jun | 23.6 °C | 44 % | 41 km/h | 0.9 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 2 Jun | 23.9 °C | 42 % | 43 km/h | 2.5 mm | Low 6 |
| 3 Jun | 24.0 °C | 43 % | 42 km/h | 4.1 mm | Very low 4 |
| 4 Jun | 24.6 °C | 46 % | 40 km/h | 1.8 mm | Very low 5 |
| 5 Jun | 23.4 °C | 38 % | 40 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 6 Jun | 25.4 °C | 32 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 7 Jun | 26.4 °C | 35 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 8 Jun | 24.7 °C | 50 % | 43 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 9 Jun | 24.4 °C | 47 % | 40 km/h | 2.5 mm | Very low 5 |
| 10 Jun | 27.6 °C | 34 % | 37 km/h | 3.6 mm | Very low 4 |
| 11 Jun | 25.5 °C | 37 % | 36 km/h | 7.1 mm | Very low 2 |
| 12 Jun | 28.7 °C | 18 % | 50 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 13 Jun | 28.7 °C | 20 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 14 Jun | 24.9 °C | 43 % | 39 km/h | 2.2 mm | Very low 5 |
| 15 Jun | 24.6 °C | 46 % | 40 km/h | 3.1 mm | Very low 2 |
| 16 Jun | 26.3 °C | 39 % | 41 km/h | 0.8 mm | Low 7 |
| 17 Jun | 26.2 °C | 32 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 18 Jun | 26.1 °C | 33 % | 45 km/h | 0.5 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 19 Jun | 26.5 °C | 29 % | 50 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 20 Jun | 27.9 °C | 25 % | 50 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 22 |
| 21 Jun | 27.7 °C | 23 % | 49 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 23 |
| 22 Jun | 27.0 °C | 19 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 23 Jun | 27.3 °C | 16 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 24 Jun | 26.1 °C | 22 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 25 Jun | 25.8 °C | 37 % | 42 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 23 |
| 26 Jun | 26.2 °C | 37 % | 47 km/h | 1.1 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 27 Jun | 28.2 °C | 32 % | 47 km/h | 2.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 28 Jun | 26.6 °C | 36 % | 37 km/h | 3.4 mm | Very low 4 |
| 29 Jun | 25.9 °C | 36 % | 36 km/h | 5.7 mm | Very low 2 |
| 30 Jun after | 22.3 °C | 56 % | 33 km/h | 14.6 mm | Very low 0 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 977Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 6,068 haTamazula17 May 2019 · 20 days · 13 km away
- 49,719 haSan IgnacioMarch 2025 · 65 days · 14 km away
- 15,732 haTamazula19 May 2018 · 24 days · 16 km away
- 6,040 haTamazula22 May 2023 · 13 days · 25 km away
- 9,253 haSan IgnacioApril 2025 · 18 days · 26 km away
- 7,103 haOtáezApril 2022 · 19 days · 30 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Tamazula fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 May 2019 to 29 June 2019 (31 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 June 2019 to 29 June 2019.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 12,257 hectares (122.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Tamazula (9,133 ha, 1.6 %); San Ignacio (3,146 ha, 0.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 28.7 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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 · 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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 3 June 2019 to 29 June 2019. 977 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.