Tamazula fire, April 2024 Tamazula, Culiacán, Cosalá
The fire started on 23 April 2024 in Tamazula, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,595 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities. According to CONAFOR, the largest of the 4 recorded fires was detected on 21 April 2024 and declared extinguished on 12 May 2024.
It is the 70th largest in Durango since 2016 (of 239 with a page). Number 85 in Mexico in 2024, of 289.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 3,595ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 12days
- 23 Apr 2024 – 4 May 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 23 Apr
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 259
- in a single hotspot: 43 MW
- Danger at start
- 45
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 112MW
- 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.
This area had burned before
69% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,330 ha in 2017, 293 ha in 2019, 2,426 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,498 ha that had burned before.
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 started3,487 ha reached on 23 Apr0.6 %
-
Culiacán 13,197 inhabitants118 ha reached on 24 Apr0.0 %
-
3 ha reached on 23 Apr0.0 %
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 was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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 4 fires according to CONAFOR
According to CONAFOR, 4 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 3,250 ha (the satellite measured 3,595 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.
When each one burned
1 2,835 ha 2 79 ha 3 286 ha 4 49 ha- 1 Tamazula Com Jala y Anexos 21 April 2024 2,835 ha · extinguished on 12 May 2024 · cause: negligence
- 2 Tamazula PP Parralito / Chacala Vado Hondo 23 April 2024 79 ha · extinguished on 28 April 2024 · cause: unknown
- 3 Cosalá Terrenos Nacionales 24 April 2024 286 ha · extinguished on 5 May 2024 · cause: arson
- 4 Culiacán ARROYO GRANDE 24 April 2024 49 ha · extinguished on 7 May 2024 · cause: arson
Total according to CONAFOR: 3,250 ha, 90 % of the 3,595 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 Apr | 30.9 °C | 18 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 24 Apr | 32.3 °C | 14 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 25 Apr | 30.3 °C | 14 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 26 Apr | 29.1 °C | 15 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 27 Apr | 29.0 °C | 14 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 28 Apr | 29.4 °C | 18 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 29 Apr | 31.1 °C | 17 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 30 Apr | 30.1 °C | 14 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 1 May | 29.9 °C | 15 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 2 May | 28.8 °C | 20 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 3 May | 29.9 °C | 22 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 4 May | 30.5 °C | 16 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 5 May after | 32.8 °C | 17 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 6 May after | 30.9 °C | 12 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 7 May after | 31.1 °C | 12 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 8 May after | 32.4 °C | 14 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 9 May after | 33.5 °C | 12 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 10 May after | 35.7 °C | 11 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 11 May after | 32.7 °C | 20 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 12 May after | 29.6 °C | 23 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 13 May after | 30.4 °C | 20 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 14 May after | 31.4 °C | 15 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
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 26 April 2024 the air beside the fire reached 30 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 20: 1.4 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 · 259Every 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 23 April 2024 to 4 May 2024 (12 days). The perimeter dates it from 23 April 2024 to 1 May 2024. According to CONAFOR, the largest of the 4 recorded fires was detected on 21 April 2024 and declared extinguished on 12 May 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,595 hectares (36.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Tamazula (3,487 ha, 0.6 %); Culiacán (118 ha, 0.0 %); Cosalá (3 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.3 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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 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.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 23 April 2024 to 1 May 2024. 259 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with CONAFOR: 3,250 official ha against 3,595 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.