Ajuchitlán del Progreso fire, March 2024 Coyuca de Catalán, Ajuchitlán del Progreso
The fire started on 23 March 2024 in Ajuchitlán del Progreso, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,062 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 150th largest in Guerrero since 2016 (of 612 with a page). Number 70 in Mexico in 2024, of 289.
The power measured by the satellite is low (22.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 4,062ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 8days
- 23 Mar 2024 – 30 Mar 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 23 Mar
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 184
- in a single hotspot: 22 MW
- Danger at start
- 29
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 137MW
- 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 34 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,841 ha in 2017, 2,693 ha in 2019, 398 ha in 2020, 420 ha in 2021, 2,952 ha in 2022, 574 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,863 ha that had burned before.
- 2,841 ha Coyuca de Catalán fire, March 2017 43,113 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,150 ha Coyuca de Catalán fire, April 2022 8,475 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,835 ha Ajuchitlán del Progreso fire, April 2019 34,994 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 858 ha Coyuca de Catalán fire, April 2019 4,331 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 802 ha Ajuchitlán del Progreso fire, May 2022 2,079 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 574 ha Ajuchitlán del Progreso fire, April 2023 15,541 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 420 ha Ajuchitlán del Progreso fire, April 2021 5,466 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 183 ha Coyuca de Catalán fire, April 2020 3,440 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
-
2,427 ha reached on 24 Mar0.7 %
-
Ajuchitlán del Progreso where it started1,655 ha reached on 23 Mar0.8 %
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 0.84 hectares of built-up land and about 100 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 25 March 2024 and burned 2,785 ha (the satellite measured 4,062 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.
- Coyuca de Catalán La Piedra Colorada 25 March 2024 2,785 ha · extinguished on 31 March 2024 · 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 Mar | 33.6 °C | 23 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 24 Mar | 32.8 °C | 17 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 25 Mar | 31.7 °C | 13 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 26 Mar | 32.1 °C | 16 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 27 Mar | 34.0 °C | 9 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 28 Mar | 32.5 °C | 24 % | 33 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 37 |
| 29 Mar | 33.0 °C | 26 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 30 Mar | 33.2 °C | 27 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 31 Mar after | 33.5 °C | 26 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 1 Apr after | 33.4 °C | 31 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 2 Apr after | 33.4 °C | 30 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 3 Apr after | 34.7 °C | 24 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 4 Apr after | 32.0 °C | 27 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 5 Apr after | 31.7 °C | 29 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 6 Apr after | 33.2 °C | 26 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 7 Apr after | 34.2 °C | 29 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 8 Apr after | 33.5 °C | 26 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 9 Apr after | 33.7 °C | 26 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
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 27 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 184Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ajuchitlán del Progreso fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 March 2024 and 30 March 2024: 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 4,062 hectares (40.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Coyuca de Catalán (2,427 ha, 0.7 %); Ajuchitlán del Progreso (1,655 ha, 0.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.0 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 184 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with CONAFOR: 2,785 official ha against 4,062 ha of perimeter; similar, but with reservations.
- 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.