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Ajuchitlán del Progreso fire, April 2024 Ajuchitlán del Progreso

Out · last detection 6 May 2024, 08:20 UTC

The fire started on 30 April 2024 in Ajuchitlán del Progreso, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,050 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality. According to CONAFOR, it was detected on 26 April 2024 and declared extinguished on 5 May 2024.

It is the 398th largest in Guerrero since 2016 (of 612 with a page). Number 183 in Mexico in 2024, of 289.

The power measured by the satellite is low (27.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
2,050ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
30 Apr 2024 – 5 May 2024
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
30 Apr
2024
Heat detections
100
in a single hotspot: 28 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
447MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 May 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Apr5 May

How it evolved, day by day

30123456

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
39km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 921 ha in 2016, 837 ha in 2017, 1,696 ha in 2019, 1,070 ha in 2020, 844 ha in 2021, 1,405 ha in 2022, 1,075 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,989 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Ajuchitlán del Progreso where it started
    2,062 ha reached on 27 Apr
    1.0 %

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.

Official record

According to CONAFOR, this fire started on 26 April 2024 and burned 2,326 ha (the satellite measured 2,050 ha).

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)
27 Apr 32.8 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Apr 31.9 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Apr 31.8 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
30 Apr 32.0 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
1 May 32.2 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 May 33.1 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
3 May 34.3 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 May 34.9 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm High 34
5 May 34.7 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 May after 34.3 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
7 May after 35.6 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 May after 35.6 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 May after 36.2 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 May after 35.2 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 May after 34.2 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 May after 34.2 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
13 May after 33.1 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 May after 33.8 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
15 May after 33.4 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.3 mm High 35
16 May after 32.3 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
17 May after 33.6 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 May after 33.7 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
19 May after 34.5 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.3 mm High 36
20 May after 32.7 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.4 mm High 33

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Apr 2024
After · 12 May 2024

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 · Copernicus

On 29 April 2024 the air beside the fire reached 35 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 27: 1.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak35 µg/m³
Days over the guideline9 days
PM1051 µg/m³
Optical depth0.77
28293012345678
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 100Every 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 30 April 2024 and 5 May 2024: 6 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter. According to CONAFOR, it was detected on 26 April 2024 and declared extinguished on 5 May 2024.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,050 hectares (20.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ajuchitlán del Progreso (2,062 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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

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.

Report an error
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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.