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Ajuchitlán del Progreso fire, 11 April 2020 Ajuchitlán del Progreso, San Miguel Totolapan

Out · last detection 17 Apr 2020, 07:29 UTC

The fire started on 11 April 2020 in Ajuchitlán del Progreso, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,844 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 101th largest in Guerrero since 2016 (of 612 with a page). Number 28 in Mexico in 2020, of 243.

Burnt area
4,844ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
11 Apr 2020 – 17 Apr 2020
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
11 Apr
2020
Heat detections
198
in a single hotspot: 35 MW
Danger at start
14
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Apr 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Apr17 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

11121314151617

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
41km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

52% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,221 ha in 2016, 1,786 ha in 2017, 453 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,538 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Ajuchitlán del Progreso where it started
    4,752 ha reached on 11 Apr
    2.4 %
  2. San Miguel Totolapan
    117 ha
    0.0 %

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.

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)
6 Apr 28.5 °C 35 % 31 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 14
7 Apr 30.3 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
8 Apr 31.4 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
9 Apr 29.7 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
10 Apr 30.9 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
11 Apr 30.5 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Apr 30.5 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
13 Apr 28.9 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Apr 30.2 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
15 Apr 29.6 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
16 Apr 30.2 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
17 Apr 28.8 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
18 Apr after 29.3 °C 32 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
19 Apr after 28.0 °C 38 % 38 km/h 0.5 mm High 26
20 Apr after 28.7 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.3 mm High 26
21 Apr after 28.9 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
22 Apr after 28.6 °C 33 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
23 Apr after 29.2 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
24 Apr after 29.0 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
25 Apr after 29.9 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
26 Apr after 29.4 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Apr after 30.2 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.8 mm High 26

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Apr 2020
After · 24 Apr 2020

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 · 198Every 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 11 April 2020 and 17 April 2020: 7 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 4,844 hectares (48.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ajuchitlán del Progreso (4,752 ha, 2.4 %); San Miguel Totolapan (117 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 41 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

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.

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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.