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Temósachic fire, 22 April 2024 Temósachic, Madera

Out · last detection 4 May 2024, 20:12 UTC

The fire started on 22 April 2024 in Temósachic, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,027 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities. According to CONAFOR, it was detected on 21 April 2024 and declared extinguished on 5 May 2024.

It is the 51th largest in Chihuahua since 2016 (of 235 with a page). Number 46 in Mexico in 2024, of 289.

Burnt area
5,027ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
22 Apr 2024 – 4 May 2024
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
22 Apr
2024
Heat detections
410
in a single hotspot: 1,023 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
5.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 May 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Apr4 May

How it evolved, day by day

2223242526272829301234

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

The weather it burned in

24°high
72km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

8% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 80 ha in 2017, 416 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 416 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Temósachic where it started
    3,756 ha reached on 22 Apr
    0.9 %
  2. Madera
    1,281 ha reached on 27 Apr
    0.2 %

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 4,111 ha (the satellite measured 5,027 ha).

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)
22 Apr 24.0 °C 15 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
23 Apr 22.8 °C 17 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
24 Apr 22.8 °C 16 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
25 Apr 20.2 °C 16 % 72 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Apr 19.4 °C 14 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Apr 18.6 °C 17 % 71 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Apr 19.3 °C 16 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Apr 23.7 °C 13 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Apr 23.4 °C 11 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
1 May 22.2 °C 14 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
2 May 21.5 °C 16 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 May 23.1 °C 11 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
4 May 22.3 °C 10 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 May after 23.9 °C 12 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 May after 22.7 °C 11 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 May after 22.5 °C 16 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 May after 22.9 °C 14 % 65 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
9 May after 23.7 °C 13 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
10 May after 22.6 °C 12 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 May after 22.7 °C 14 % 65 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
12 May after 21.6 °C 14 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
13 May after 22.8 °C 13 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 May after 24.3 °C 11 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Apr 2024
After · 11 May 2024

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 27 April 2024 the air beside the fire reached 30 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak30 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1044 µg/m³
Optical depth0.17
20212223242526272829301234567
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 · 410Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Mexico ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Temósachic fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 April 2024 and 4 May 2024: 13 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter. According to CONAFOR, it was detected on 21 April 2024 and declared extinguished on 5 May 2024.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,027 hectares (50.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Temósachic (3,756 ha, 0.9 %); Madera (1,281 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 24.0 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 72 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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

Satellite cross-check

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
What do you think is wrong?

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.