Ajuchitlán del Progreso fire, May 2023 Ajuchitlán del Progreso
The fire started on 25 May 2023 in Ajuchitlán del Progreso, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,315 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 130th largest in Guerrero since 2016 (of 612 with a page). Number 60 in Mexico in 2023, of 285.
- Burnt area
- 4,315ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 20days
- 25 May 2023 – 13 Jun 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 25 May
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 183
- in a single hotspot: 45 MW
- Danger at start
- 2
- Very low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 58MW
- 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 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.7 mm on 17 Jun.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,696 ha in 2016, 70 ha in 2017, 851 ha in 2019, 4,071 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,328 ha that had burned before.
- 4,071 ha Ajuchitlán del Progreso fire, May 2020 18,639 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,086 ha Ajuchitlán del Progreso fire, April 2016 3,664 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 400 ha Ajuchitlán del Progreso fire, May 2019 2,757 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 312 ha Ajuchitlán del Progreso fire, May 2019 4,396 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 139 ha Ajuchitlán del Progreso fire, April 2019 34,994 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 started4,334 ha reached on 25 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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 May | 27.6 °C | 44 % | 31 km/h | 0.8 mm | Very low 2 |
| 26 May | 26.7 °C | 44 % | 34 km/h | 1.9 mm | Very low 2 |
| 27 May | 25.8 °C | 57 % | 30 km/h | 7.4 mm | Very low 0 |
| 28 May | 23.6 °C | 67 % | 33 km/h | 8.8 mm | Very low 0 |
| 29 May | 25.7 °C | 56 % | 32 km/h | 8.6 mm | Very low 0 |
| 30 May | 26.4 °C | 48 % | 30 km/h | 1.2 mm | Very low 1 |
| 31 May | 28.4 °C | 36 % | 29 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very low 4 |
| 1 Jun | 28.8 °C | 35 % | 30 km/h | 0.1 mm | Low 8 |
| 2 Jun | 29.4 °C | 39 % | 31 km/h | 0.3 mm | Low 10 |
| 3 Jun | 30.0 °C | 28 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 4 Jun | 28.6 °C | 31 % | 29 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 5 Jun | 28.2 °C | 35 % | 40 km/h | 0.8 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 6 Jun | 26.2 °C | 47 % | 33 km/h | 0.9 mm | Low 8 |
| 7 Jun | 25.6 °C | 60 % | 34 km/h | 2.5 mm | Very low 2 |
| 8 Jun | 27.9 °C | 49 % | 26 km/h | 1.5 mm | Very low 3 |
| 9 Jun | 28.8 °C | 39 % | 29 km/h | 0.3 mm | Low 10 |
| 10 Jun | 28.9 °C | 43 % | 25 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 11 Jun | 28.9 °C | 40 % | 33 km/h | 0.6 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 12 Jun | 29.4 °C | 37 % | 24 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 13 Jun | 30.1 °C | 39 % | 36 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 14 Jun after | 29.1 °C | 36 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 15 Jun after | 28.1 °C | 41 % | 33 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 16 Jun after | 28.6 °C | 43 % | 26 km/h | 0.5 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 17 Jun after | 27.6 °C | 46 % | 26 km/h | 2.7 mm | Very low 4 |
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 23 May 2023 the air beside the fire reached 47 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 36: 2.4 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 · 183Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 18,639 haAjuchitlán del Progreso5 May 2020 · 32 days · 1 km away
- 15,541 haAjuchitlán del Progreso25 April 2023 · 20 days · 19 km away
- 34,994 haAjuchitlán del Progreso30 April 2019 · 29 days · 20 km away
- 27,274 haCoyuca de Catalán22 April 2024 · 39 days · 23 km away
- 12,595 haSan Miguel Totolapan20 April 2019 · 32 days · 26 km away
- 14,680 haSan Miguel TotolapanApril 2022 · 27 days · 29 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 25 May 2023 to 13 June 2023 (20 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 May 2023 to 12 June 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,315 hectares (43.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Ajuchitlán del Progreso (4,334 ha, 2.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 30.1 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 17, class Moderate.
- 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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 25 May 2023 to 12 June 2023. 183 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.
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.