Tamazula fire, 17 May 2023 Tamazula, Culiacán
The fire started on 17 May 2023 in Tamazula, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,287 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities. According to CONAFOR, the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 18 May 2023 and declared extinguished on 2 June 2023.
It is the 82th largest in Durango since 2016 (of 239 with a page). Number 92 in Mexico in 2023, of 285.
The power measured by the satellite is low (23.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 3,287ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 18days
- 17 May 2023 – 3 Jun 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 17 May
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 184
- in a single hotspot: 23 MW
- Danger at start
- 38
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 62MW
- 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 59 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
5% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 9 ha in 2016, 173 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 started2,925 ha reached on 17 May0.5 %
-
Culiacán 13,197 inhabitants384 ha reached on 17 May0.1 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 0.20 hectares of built-up land and about 30 residents (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
Complex of 2 fires according to CONAFOR
According to CONAFOR, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 3,192 ha (the satellite measured 3,287 ha).
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.
- 1 Culiacán Las Tranquitas 15 May 2023 616 ha · extinguished on 4 June 2023 · cause: unknown
- 2 Tamazula Com Tabahueto / Pinosa 18 May 2023 2,576 ha · extinguished on 2 June 2023 · cause: unknown
Total according to CONAFOR: 3,192 ha, 97 % of the 3,287 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 May | 26.2 °C | 28 % | 48 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 38 |
| 18 May | 27.6 °C | 28 % | 53 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 32 |
| 19 May | 25.2 °C | 31 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 20 May | 28.3 °C | 22 % | 39 km/h | 0.9 mm | High 28 |
| 21 May | 32.6 °C | 12 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 22 May | 32.3 °C | 10 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 23 May | 31.6 °C | 13 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 24 May | 31.0 °C | 13 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 25 May | 30.9 °C | 12 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 26 May | 31.4 °C | 14 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 27 May | 29.1 °C | 20 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 28 May | 27.7 °C | 22 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 29 May | 27.9 °C | 23 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 30 May | 28.8 °C | 23 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 31 May | 30.1 °C | 23 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 1 Jun | 29.0 °C | 30 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 2 Jun | 30.1 °C | 30 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 3 Jun | 29.0 °C | 23 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 4 Jun after | 31.5 °C | 23 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 5 Jun after | 31.2 °C | 28 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 6 Jun after | 29.0 °C | 33 % | 42 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 35 |
| 7 Jun after | 29.0 °C | 37 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 8 Jun after | 29.1 °C | 36 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 9 Jun after | 32.1 °C | 29 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 10 Jun after | 31.8 °C | 27 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 11 Jun after | 33.3 °C | 26 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 12 Jun after | 34.6 °C | 23 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 13 Jun after | 37.6 °C | 13 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 27 May 2023 the air beside the fire reached 47 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 27: 1.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 184Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Tamazula fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 May 2023 to 3 June 2023 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 24 May 2023 to 3 June 2023. According to CONAFOR, the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 18 May 2023 and declared extinguished on 2 June 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,287 hectares (32.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Tamazula (2,925 ha, 0.5 %); Culiacán (384 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.6 °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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Matched to the official record from CONAFOR.
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.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 24 May 2023 to 3 June 2023. 184 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with CONAFOR: 3,192 official ha against 3,287 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- 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.
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.