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Ajuchitlán del Progreso fire, 19 April 2019 Coyuca de Catalán, Ajuchitlán del Progreso

Out · last detection 27 Apr 2019, 19:55 UTC

The fire started on 19 April 2019 in Ajuchitlán del Progreso, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,601 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 179th largest in Guerrero since 2016 (of 612 with a page). Number 103 in Mexico in 2019, of 364.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Coyuca de Catalán · 2018Ajuchitlán del Progreso · 2019Ajuchitlán del Progreso · 2023Coyuca de Catalán · 2017

Burnt area
3,601ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
19 Apr 2019 – 26 Apr 2019
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
19 Apr
2019
Heat detections
115
in a single hotspot: 93 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
117MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Apr26 Apr
27 Apr 2019

How it evolved, day by day

19 Apr 2019 · 212 MW · 27 20 Apr 2019 · 27 MW · 2 21 Apr 2019 · 6 MW · 1 22 Apr 2019 · 148 MW · 11 23 Apr 2019 · 566 MW · 43 24 Apr 2019 · 52 MW · 17 25 Apr 2019 · 29 MW · 10 26 Apr 2019 · 4 MW · 2 27 Apr 2019 · 13 MW · 2
19 Apr 21 Apr 23 Apr 25 Apr 27 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

41°high
39km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

41% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 957 ha in 2017, 522 ha in 2018.

How big is it?

10 km
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

  1. Coyuca de Catalán
    2,654 ha
    0.8 %
  2. Ajuchitlán del Progreso where it started
    969 ha
    0.5 %

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.

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)
19 Apr 37.3 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Apr 38.5 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Apr 38.5 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
22 Apr 38.4 °C 17 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Apr 40.8 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
24 Apr 37.9 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
25 Apr 38.1 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
26 Apr 39.5 °C 9 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
27 Apr after 38.6 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
28 Apr after 39.5 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
29 Apr after 39.3 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
30 Apr after 40.2 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
1 May after 40.9 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
2 May after 39.6 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
3 May after 39.3 °C 17 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
4 May after 38.1 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 May after 37.9 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
6 May after 38.6 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
7 May after 40.1 °C 7 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Apr 2019
After · 3 May 2019

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 · 115Every 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 Ajuchitlán del Progreso fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 April 2019 and 26 April 2019: 8 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 3,601 hectares (36.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Coyuca de Catalán (2,654 ha, 0.8 %); Ajuchitlán del Progreso (969 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.8 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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 ›

Satellite cross-check

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.

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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. 115 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.

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.