How long did the Tlatlaya fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 May 2020 to 1 June 2020 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 12 May 2020 to 30 May 2020.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 12,344 hectares (123.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Tlalchapa (8,487 ha, 18 %); Tlatlaya (3,925 ha, 5.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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.

MX · Mexico · 2020-05-11 → 2020-06-01

Tlatlaya fire, May 2020 Tlalchapa, Tlatlaya

Out · last detection 1 Jun 2020, 19:36 UTC

The fire started on 11 May 2020 in Tlatlaya, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,344 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in México since 2016 (of 27 with a page). Number 5 in Mexico in 2020, of 242.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Tlalchapa · 2018 Tlalchapa · 2016 Tlalchapa · 2016 Tlatlaya · 2016

Burnt area: 12,344ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 22days; 11 May 2020 – 1 Jun 2020
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 11 May; 2020
Heat detections: 644; in a single hotspot: 36 MW
Danger at start: 45; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 156MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 May1 Jun

Play back 1 Jun 2020

How it evolved, day by day

11 May 15 May 17 May 19 May 23 May 27 May 31 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

35°high

38km/h · peak gust

7%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.4 mm on 6 Jun.

This area had burned before

65% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,584 ha in 2016, 4,737 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,986 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 7.8% of the area of London (123 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

Tlalchapa

8,487 ha reached on 14 May

18 %
Tlatlaya where it started

3,925 ha reached on 11 May

5.0 %

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 2020

Built-up area2.2 ha

Residents≈ 150

Inside the perimeter there were about 2.2 hectares of built-up land and about 150 residents (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

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)
11 May	33.9 °C	16 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
12 May	34.3 °C	11 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
13 May	34.4 °C	12 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
14 May	34.1 °C	13 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
15 May	34.1 °C	12 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
16 May	33.9 °C	9 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
17 May	34.5 °C	7 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
18 May	35.0 °C	13 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
19 May	35.3 °C	12 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
20 May	34.9 °C	16 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
21 May	34.5 °C	16 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
22 May	34.4 °C	16 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
23 May	33.3 °C	19 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
24 May	33.5 °C	15 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
25 May	33.6 °C	11 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
26 May	33.3 °C	11 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
27 May	34.5 °C	8 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
28 May	33.7 °C	14 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
29 May	34.4 °C	7 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
30 May	34.0 °C	16 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
31 May	33.6 °C	19 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
1 Jun	33.5 °C	16 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
2 Jun after	34.0 °C	22 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
3 Jun after	34.6 °C	22 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
4 Jun after	35.1 °C	19 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
5 Jun after	34.4 °C	26 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
6 Jun after	31.4 °C	36 %	41 km/h	3.4 mm	Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 4 May 2020

After · 8 Jun 2020

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.

Detections table · 644Every 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 Tlatlaya fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 May 2020 to 1 June 2020 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 12 May 2020 to 30 May 2020.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 12,344 hectares (123.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Tlalchapa (8,487 ha, 18 %); Tlatlaya (3,925 ha, 5.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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 ›

CONAFOR · Comisión Nacional Forestal ↗
CENAPRED ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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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.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 12 May 2020 to 30 May 2020. 644 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.
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.

Where it burned