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Tumbiscatío fire, April 2024 Tumbiscatío, Apatzingán

Out · last detection 24 Apr 2024, 08:45 UTC

The fire started on 21 April 2024 in Tumbiscatío, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,626 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 91th largest in Michoacan de Ocampo since 2016 (of 111 with a page). Number 264 in Mexico in 2024, of 289.

Burnt area
1,626ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
21 Apr 2024 – 24 Apr 2024
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
21 Apr
2024
Heat detections
90
in a single hotspot: 81 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
706MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Apr 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Apr24 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

21222324

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
28km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

6% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 105 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Tumbiscatío where it started
    867 ha reached on 19 Apr
    0.4 %
  2. Apatzingán 126,191 inhabitants
    767 ha reached on 22 Apr
    0.5 %

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 22 April 2024 and burned 1,070 ha (the satellite measured 1,626 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)
21 Apr 34.5 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Apr 33.4 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Apr 33.8 °C 26 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Apr 34.5 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Apr after 33.9 °C 23 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
26 Apr after 31.7 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
27 Apr after 33.2 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Apr after 32.7 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Apr after 31.9 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Apr after 32.6 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 May after 33.0 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 May after 33.3 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 May after 34.4 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 May after 34.4 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Apr 2024
After · 1 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 41 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 30: 2.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak41 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM1060 µg/m³
Optical depth0.86
192021222324252627
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 · 90Every 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 Tumbiscatío fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 April 2024 and 24 April 2024: 4 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 1,626 hectares (16.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Tumbiscatío (867 ha, 0.4 %); Apatzingán (767 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 28 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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

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
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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.