How long did the Tekax fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 April 2024 and 28 April 2024: 8 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 1,690 hectares (16.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Tekax (1,695 ha, 0.6 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.

MX · Mexico · 2024-04-21 → 2024-04-28

Tekax fire, 21 April 2024 Tekax

Out · last detection 28 Apr 2024, 18:41 UTC

The fire started on 21 April 2024 in Tekax, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,690 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 14th largest in Yucatán since 2016 (of 17 with a page). Number 245 in Mexico in 2024, of 289.

Burnt area: 1,690ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 8days; 21 Apr 2024 – 28 Apr 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 21 Apr; 2024
Heat detections: 141; in a single hotspot: 112 MW
Danger at start: 37; High · FWI index
Energy released: 1.2GW; sum of detected power

Play back 28 Apr 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Apr28 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

2122232425262728

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

The weather it burned in

37°high

48km/h · peak gust

30%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 29 Apr.

This area had burned before

79% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,700 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,331 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Tekax 25,751 inhabitants where it started

1,695 ha reached on 21 Apr

0.6 %

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.

Official record

According to CONAFOR, this fire started on 21 April 2024 and burned 2,428 ha (the satellite measured 1,690 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

Tekax Tres Banderas 21 April 2024 2,428 ha · extinguished on 11 June 2024 · cause: negligence

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)
21 Apr	37.4 °C	30 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
22 Apr	36.1 °C	34 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
23 Apr	36.8 °C	35 %	37 km/h	0.1 mm	High 37
24 Apr	36.8 °C	34 %	36 km/h	0.1 mm	High 36
25 Apr	35.0 °C	42 %	35 km/h	0.1 mm	High 33
26 Apr	35.7 °C	39 %	45 km/h	0.1 mm	High 37
27 Apr	35.4 °C	39 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
28 Apr	36.5 °C	47 %	48 km/h	0.8 mm	High 30
29 Apr after	36.9 °C	46 %	44 km/h	1.4 mm	High 26

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 14 Apr 2024

After · 5 May 2024

Before After

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 25 April 2024 the air beside the fire reached 29 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak29 µg/m³

Days over the guideline1 day

PM1044 µg/m³

Optical depth0.68

WHO 15

1920212223242526272829301

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 · 141Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Mexico ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Tekax fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 April 2024 and 28 April 2024: 8 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 1,690 hectares (16.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Tekax (1,695 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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

CONAFOR · Comisión Nacional Forestal ↗
CENAPRED ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned