Uruapan fire, April 2024 Uruapan, Nuevo Parangaricutiro
The fire started on 28 April 2024 in Uruapan, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,532 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 105th largest in Michoacan de Ocampo since 2016 (of 111 with a page). Number 282 in Mexico in 2024, of 289.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 1,532ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 9days
- 28 Apr 2024 – 6 May 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 28 Apr
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 76
- in a single hotspot: 114 MW
- Danger at start
- 39
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 171MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 11 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?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Uruapan where it started1,009 ha reached on 28 Apr1.0 %
-
Nuevo Parangaricutiro 356,786 inhabitants532 ha reached on 1 May2.2 %
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.
Several official records match this area
According to CONAFOR, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 816 ha (the satellite measured 1,532 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.
CONAFOR records each fire that started at a different time or place separately; the satellite sees a single burned area, so this page groups them together. The numbers on the map show where each one started.
- 1 Uruapan Barranca de Cupatiztio 1 May 2024 755 ha · extinguished on 4 May 2024 · cause: arson
- 2 Uruapan La Virgencita 5 May 2024 60 ha · extinguished on 6 May 2024 · cause: arson
Total according to CONAFOR: 816 ha, 53 % of the 1,532 ha in the satellite perimeter.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 May | 27.8 °C | 21 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 2 May | 28.4 °C | 24 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 3 May | 30.0 °C | 23 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 4 May | 30.0 °C | 26 % | 45 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 39 |
| 5 May | 30.4 °C | 25 % | 44 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 38 |
| 6 May | 30.3 °C | 24 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 7 May after | 31.9 °C | 19 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 8 May after | 31.0 °C | 22 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 9 May after | 32.2 °C | 19 % | 36 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 38 |
| 10 May after | 33.6 °C | 19 % | 38 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 40 |
| 11 May after | 31.5 °C | 19 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 12 May after | 29.7 °C | 20 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 13 May after | 29.6 °C | 24 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 14 May after | 29.8 °C | 25 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 15 May after | 29.4 °C | 28 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 16 May after | 29.5 °C | 28 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 9 May 2024 the air beside the fire reached 30 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 76Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 3,629 haUruapanApril 2022 · 5 days · 16 km away
- 2,785 haZiracuaretiroApril 2021 · 29 days · 18 km away
- 3,840 haGabriel ZamoraMay 2022 · 15 days · 22 km away
- 3,558 haTancítaroApril 2022 · 4 days · 23 km away
- 5,344 haGabriel ZamoraApril 2024 · 18 days · 24 km away
- 2,622 haChilchotaApril 2019 · 29 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Uruapan fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 April 2024 to 6 May 2024 (9 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 May 2024 to 6 May 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,532 hectares (15.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Uruapan (1,009 ha, 1.0 %); Nuevo Parangaricutiro (532 ha, 2.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 30.4 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 1 May 2024 → 28 April 2024.
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
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 1 May 2024 to 6 May 2024. 76 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with CONAFOR: 816 official ha against 1,532 ha of perimeter; similar, but with reservations.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.