Tamazula fire, May 2025 Tamazula, Cosalá
The fire started on 9 May 2025 in Tamazula, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,828 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 24th largest in Durango since 2016 (of 239 with a page). Number 24 in Mexico in 2025, of 166.
The power measured by the satellite is low (25.0 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
- 5,828ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 21days
- 9 May 2025 – 29 May 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 9 May
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 510
- in a single hotspot: 25 MW
- Danger at start
- 43
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 129MW
- 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 33 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 12.1 mm on 31 May.
This area had burned before
76% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,374 ha in 2017, 4,652 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,440 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 started5,611 ha reached on 14 May1.0 %
-
222 ha reached on 10 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.
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 May | 35.5 °C | 19 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 10 May | 35.2 °C | 20 % | 41 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 42 |
| 11 May | 33.9 °C | 22 % | 42 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 43 |
| 12 May | 32.9 °C | 25 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 13 May | 34.2 °C | 17 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 14 May | 33.8 °C | 16 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 15 May | 35.7 °C | 16 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 16 May | 36.3 °C | 17 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 17 May | 35.6 °C | 19 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 18 May | 35.1 °C | 15 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 19 May | 34.5 °C | 15 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 20 May | 36.5 °C | 11 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 21 May | 37.9 °C | 11 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 22 May | 36.7 °C | 13 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 23 May | 36.5 °C | 16 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 24 May | 36.7 °C | 19 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 25 May | 35.1 °C | 26 % | 45 km/h | 1.5 mm | High 30 |
| 26 May | 34.6 °C | 26 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 27 May | 35.1 °C | 24 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 28 May | 34.9 °C | 21 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 29 May | 34.5 °C | 25 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 30 May after | 27.7 °C | 44 % | 27 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 26 |
| 31 May after | 30.9 °C | 39 % | 34 km/h | 12.1 mm | Very low 4 |
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 25 May 2025 the air beside the fire reached 176 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 61: 4.1 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 · 510Every 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 9 May 2025 to 29 May 2025 (21 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 May 2025 to 26 May 2025.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,828 hectares (58.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Tamazula (5,611 ha, 1.0 %); Cosalá (222 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.9 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, class Extreme.
- 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 16 May 2025 to 26 May 2025. 510 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.