Ajuchitlán del Progreso fire, 17 April 2023 Ajuchitlán del Progreso
The fire started on 17 April 2023 in Ajuchitlán del Progreso, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,413 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality. According to CONAFOR, it was detected on 17 April 2023 and declared extinguished on 24 April 2023.
It is the 69th largest in Guerrero since 2016 (of 612 with a page). Number 27 in Mexico in 2023, of 285.
- Burnt area
- 6,413ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 15days
- 17 Apr 2023 – 1 May 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 17 Apr
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 340
- in a single hotspot: 40 MW
- Danger at start
- 38
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 119MW
- 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 31 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,776 ha in 2017, 961 ha in 2018, 4,789 ha in 2019, 1,444 ha in 2020, 674 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,682 ha that had burned before.
- 4,571 ha Ajuchitlán del Progreso fire, April 2019 5,986 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,776 ha Ajuchitlán del Progreso fire, May 2017 2,908 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 674 ha Ajuchitlán del Progreso fire, April 2021 2,011 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
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
-
Ajuchitlán del Progreso where it started6,451 ha reached on 17 Apr3.2 %
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 0.94 hectares of built-up land and about 80 residents (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
Official record
According to CONAFOR, this fire started on 17 April 2023 and burned 5,579 ha (the satellite measured 6,413 ha).
- Ajuchitlán del Progreso Ejido El Espiritu/ Ejido El Tepehuaje 17 April 2023 5,579 ha · extinguished on 24 April 2023 · cause: unknown
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 Apr | 31.0 °C | 23 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 18 Apr | 31.8 °C | 22 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 19 Apr | 32.8 °C | 16 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 20 Apr | 33.5 °C | 20 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 21 Apr | 35.1 °C | 14 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 22 Apr | 33.6 °C | 20 % | 30 km/h | 0.8 mm | High 35 |
| 23 Apr | 32.5 °C | 20 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 24 Apr | 32.0 °C | 24 % | 31 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 36 |
| 25 Apr | 32.5 °C | 18 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 26 Apr | 33.2 °C | 15 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 27 Apr | 32.5 °C | 15 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 28 Apr | 32.9 °C | 14 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 29 Apr | 32.7 °C | 10 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 30 Apr | 31.5 °C | 21 % | 33 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 42 |
| 1 May | 32.3 °C | 20 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 2 May after | 32.4 °C | 20 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 3 May after | 33.6 °C | 17 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 4 May after | 32.8 °C | 25 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 5 May after | 32.3 °C | 22 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 6 May after | 34.6 °C | 15 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 7 May after | 34.2 °C | 16 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 8 May after | 33.0 °C | 13 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 9 May after | 33.4 °C | 19 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 10 May after | 33.6 °C | 19 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 11 May after | 33.6 °C | 20 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
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 29 April 2023 the air beside the fire reached 43 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 25: 1.7 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 · 340Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 34,994 haAjuchitlán del Progreso30 April 2019 · 29 days · 15 km away
- 15,541 haAjuchitlán del Progreso25 April 2023 · 20 days · 16 km away
- 14,680 haSan Miguel TotolapanApril 2022 · 27 days · 20 km away
- 43,113 haCoyuca de Catalán29 March 2017 · 46 days · 31 km away
- 18,639 haAjuchitlán del Progreso5 May 2020 · 32 days · 32 km away
- 27,274 haCoyuca de Catalán22 April 2024 · 39 days · 35 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ajuchitlán del Progreso fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 April 2023 to 1 May 2023 (15 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 April 2023 to 29 April 2023. According to CONAFOR, it was detected on 17 April 2023 and declared extinguished on 24 April 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,413 hectares (64.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Ajuchitlán del Progreso (6,451 ha, 3.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.1 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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 18 April 2023 to 29 April 2023. 340 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with CONAFOR: 5,579 official ha against 6,413 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- 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.
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.