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Tepehuanes fire, 12 April 2019 Tepehuanes

Out · last detection 3 May 2019, 19:45 UTC

The fire started on 12 April 2019 in Tepehuanes, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,906 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 6th largest in Durango since 2016 (of 239 with a page). Number 15 in Mexico in 2019, of 364.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Tepehuanes · 2019Tepehuanes · 2025Tepehuanes · 2021Tepehuanes · 2018

Burnt area
13,906ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
24days
12 Apr 2019 – 5 May 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
12 Apr
2019
Heat detections
1,102
in a single hotspot: 471 MW
Danger at start
57
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
1.0GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Apr5 May
3 May 2019

How it evolved, day by day

12 Apr 2019 · 166 MW · 2 13 Apr 2019 · 458 MW · 33 14 Apr 2019 · 45 MW · 9 15 Apr 2019 · 301 MW · 20 16 Apr 2019 · 1,651 MW · 54 17 Apr 2019 · 10,043 MW · 182 18 Apr 2019 · 602 MW · 92 19 Apr 2019 · 618 MW · 95 20 Apr 2019 · 3,297 MW · 78 21 Apr 2019 · 695 MW · 132 22 Apr 2019 · 763 MW · 59 23 Apr 2019 · 1,565 MW · 92 24 Apr 2019 · 1,566 MW · 130 25 Apr 2019 · 397 MW · 51 26 Apr 2019 · 340 MW · 21 27 Apr 2019 · 163 MW · 19 28 Apr 2019 · 5 MW · 4 29 Apr 2019 · 6 MW · 1 30 Apr 2019 · 78 MW · 3 1 May 2019 · 50 MW · 10 2 May 2019 · 17 MW · 11 3 May 2019 · 58 MW · 4
12 Apr 16 Apr 17 Apr 20 Apr 24 Apr 28 Apr 2 May

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

The weather it burned in

25°high
86km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone 25 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 8.8% of the area of London (139 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Tepehuanes where it started
    13,978 ha reached on 12 Apr
    2.3 %

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 2020
Built-up area0.67 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.67 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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.

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

Official record

According to CONAFOR, this fire started on 12 April 2019 and burned 5,232 ha (the satellite measured 13,906 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

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)
12 Apr 17.2 °C 12 % 86 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
13 Apr 16.5 °C 15 % 70 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
14 Apr 21.6 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Apr 23.0 °C 13 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
16 Apr 21.4 °C 12 % 72 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
17 Apr 20.9 °C 14 % 83 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
18 Apr 20.2 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Apr 21.7 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Apr 24.8 °C 11 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Apr 23.5 °C 16 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
22 Apr 21.6 °C 21 % 63 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Apr 19.9 °C 14 % 75 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
24 Apr 18.5 °C 12 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
25 Apr 22.1 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Apr 24.1 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Apr 24.8 °C 14 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Apr 24.7 °C 8 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
29 Apr 24.5 °C 11 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
30 Apr 21.2 °C 14 % 82 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
1 May 23.3 °C 10 % 66 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
2 May 24.4 °C 10 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
3 May 23.0 °C 17 % 58 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 50
4 May 25.1 °C 10 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
5 May 24.8 °C 11 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
6 May after 24.1 °C 12 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
7 May after 23.8 °C 11 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
8 May after 21.8 °C 11 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
9 May after 24.0 °C 12 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
10 May after 20.7 °C 20 % 72 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
11 May after 20.7 °C 16 % 71 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
12 May after 20.4 °C 13 % 70 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
13 May after 22.0 °C 8 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
14 May after 24.7 °C 9 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 May after 26.3 °C 12 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Apr 2019
After · 12 May 2019

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 1,102Every 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 Tepehuanes fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 12 April 2019 to 5 May 2019 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 12 April 2019 to 28 April 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 13,906 hectares (139.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Tepehuanes (13,978 ha, 2.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 25.1 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 86 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, 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.

RSS Changes to this page

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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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.

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 12 April 2019 to 28 April 2019. 1,102 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with CONAFOR: 5,232 official ha against 13,906 ha of perimeter; similar, but with reservations.
  • 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 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.