How long did the Yécora fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 4 May 2025 to 21 May 2025 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 May 2025 to 18 May 2025.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 9,352 hectares (93.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Yécora (9,296 ha, 3.5 %); Sahuaripa (100 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 72 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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 · 2025-05-04 → 2025-05-21

Yécora fire, 4 May 2025 Yécora, Sahuaripa

Out · last detection 21 May 2025, 20:50 UTC

The fire started on 4 May 2025 in Yécora, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,352 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 14th largest in Sonora since 2016 (of 83 with a page). Number 11 in Mexico in 2025, of 166.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Yécora · 2017 Yécora · 2018 Yécora · 2021 Sahuaripa · 2020

Burnt area: 9,352ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 18days; 4 May 2025 – 21 May 2025
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 4 May; 2025
Heat detections: 884; in a single hotspot: 60 MW
Danger at start: 55; Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power: 318MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 May21 May

Play back 21 May 2025

How it evolved, day by day

4 May 7 May 10 May 11 May 13 May 17 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

34°high

72km/h · peak gust

8%lowest humidity

It had gone 31 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.7 mm on 31 May.

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 5.9% of the area of London (94 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

Yécora where it started

9,296 ha reached on 4 May

3.5 %
Sahuaripa

100 ha reached on 14 May

0.0 %

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 2025

Built-up area0.11 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.11 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

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)
4 May	24.5 °C	19 %	70 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
5 May	18.9 °C	37 %	72 km/h	1.6 mm	Moderate 20
6 May	22.3 °C	19 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
7 May	26.2 °C	16 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
8 May	29.2 °C	11 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
9 May	33.2 °C	11 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
10 May	33.0 °C	11 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
11 May	32.7 °C	14 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
12 May	31.0 °C	19 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
13 May	29.2 °C	17 %	58 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
14 May	27.0 °C	18 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
15 May	28.5 °C	13 %	59 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
16 May	28.8 °C	10 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
17 May	28.5 °C	13 %	59 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
18 May	28.7 °C	8 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
19 May	27.9 °C	15 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
20 May	31.4 °C	14 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
21 May	33.7 °C	12 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
22 May after	33.4 °C	14 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
23 May after	32.4 °C	11 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
24 May after	31.1 °C	9 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
25 May after	30.9 °C	6 %	59 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
26 May after	31.1 °C	9 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
27 May after	31.8 °C	8 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
28 May after	32.8 °C	10 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
29 May after	31.9 °C	14 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
30 May after	26.9 °C	29 %	39 km/h	0.5 mm	Very high 39
31 May after	30.2 °C	31 %	35 km/h	2.7 mm	Moderate 14

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 27 Apr 2025

After · 28 May 2025

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 9 May 2025 the air beside the fire reached 48 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 20: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak48 µg/m³

Days over the guideline6 days

PM1050 µg/m³

Optical depth0.39

WHO 15

23456789101112131415161718192021222324

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 · 884Every 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 Yécora fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 4 May 2025 to 21 May 2025 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 May 2025 to 18 May 2025.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 9,352 hectares (93.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Yécora (9,296 ha, 3.5 %); Sahuaripa (100 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 72 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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.

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.

Report an error

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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 4 May 2025 to 18 May 2025. 884 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 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