How long did the Tumbiscatío fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 March 2024 and 9 April 2024: 13 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 3,617 hectares (36.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Tumbiscatío (3,635 ha, 1.8 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 27.6 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, class 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 · 2024-03-28 → 2024-04-09

Tumbiscatío fire, 28 March 2024 Tumbiscatío

Out · last detection 9 Apr 2024, 08:27 UTC

The fire started on 28 March 2024 in Tumbiscatío, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,617 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 18th largest in Michoacan de Ocampo since 2016 (of 111 with a page). Number 84 in Mexico in 2024, of 289.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Tumbiscatío · 2021 Aguililla · 2024 Tumbiscatío · 2020 Tumbiscatío · 2021

Burnt area: 3,617ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 13days; 28 Mar 2024 – 9 Apr 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 28 Mar; 2024
Heat detections: 266; in a single hotspot: 36 MW
Danger at start: 28; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 151MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Mar9 Apr

Play back 9 Apr 2024

How it evolved, day by day

28 Mar 30 Mar 1 Apr 3 Apr 5 Apr 6 Apr 7 Apr 9 Apr

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

The weather it burned in

28°high

45km/h · peak gust

15%lowest humidity

It had gone 39 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?

It burned the equivalent of 2.3% of the area of London (36 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

Tumbiscatío where it started

3,635 ha reached on 28 Mar

1.8 %

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 2025

Built-up area0.18 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.18 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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 28 March 2024 and burned 2,216 ha (the satellite measured 3,617 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

Tumbiscatío El Pedregoso 28 March 2024 2,216 ha · extinguished on 9 April 2024 · cause: unknown

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)
28 Mar	25.8 °C	15 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
29 Mar	26.3 °C	20 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
30 Mar	25.9 °C	33 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
31 Mar	26.3 °C	33 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
1 Apr	25.7 °C	40 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
2 Apr	26.2 °C	42 %	30 km/h	0.3 mm	Moderate 20
3 Apr	25.6 °C	37 %	41 km/h	0.2 mm	High 23
4 Apr	23.3 °C	24 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
5 Apr	25.1 °C	29 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
6 Apr	26.2 °C	26 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
7 Apr	27.6 °C	30 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
8 Apr	25.8 °C	32 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
9 Apr	25.8 °C	33 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
10 Apr after	25.1 °C	36 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
11 Apr after	25.8 °C	32 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
12 Apr after	27.8 °C	32 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
13 Apr after	29.7 °C	29 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
14 Apr after	28.1 °C	34 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
15 Apr after	27.4 °C	36 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
16 Apr after	28.1 °C	29 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
17 Apr after	28.8 °C	31 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
18 Apr after	28.0 °C	35 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
19 Apr after	27.3 °C	38 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 21 Mar 2024

After · 16 Apr 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 5 April 2024 the air beside the fire reached 34 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 21: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak34 µg/m³

Days over the guideline4 days

PM1050 µg/m³

Optical depth0.41

WHO 15

262728293031123456789101112

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 · 266Every 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 Tumbiscatío fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 March 2024 and 9 April 2024: 13 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 3,617 hectares (36.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Tumbiscatío (3,635 ha, 1.8 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 27.6 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, class 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 · 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.

RSS Changes to this page

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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.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 266 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
Compared with CONAFOR: 2,216 official ha against 3,617 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 2025, 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