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Amatepec fire, April 2023 Cutzamala de Pinzón, Amatepec

Out · last detection 7 May 2023, 20:16 UTC

The fire started on 27 April 2023 in Amatepec, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,384 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 5th largest in México since 2016 (of 27 with a page). Number 89 in Mexico in 2023, of 286.

Burnt area
3,384ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
27 Apr 2023 – 6 May 2023
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
27 Apr
2023
Heat detections
179
in a single hotspot: 37 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
874MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 May 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Apr6 May

How it evolved, day by day

272829301234567

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
40km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 13 May.

This area had burned before

91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,097 ha in 2016, 2,095 ha in 2017, 1,449 ha in 2018, 940 ha in 2019, 1,973 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,077 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cutzamala de Pinzón
    2,685 ha reached on 28 Apr
    2.0 %
  2. Amatepec where it started
    718 ha reached on 27 Apr
    1.1 %

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 28 April 2023 and burned 1,868 ha (the satellite measured 3,384 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

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 32.9 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
28 Apr 33.4 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Apr 34.4 °C 9 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
30 Apr 33.5 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
1 May 33.4 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
2 May 33.7 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
3 May 35.0 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
4 May 34.7 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 May 34.5 °C 17 % 33 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 46
6 May 37.2 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
7 May after 35.6 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 May after 33.9 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 May after 35.2 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 47
10 May after 34.2 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
11 May after 34.7 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
12 May after 31.9 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 May after 33.5 °C 23 % 45 km/h 1.2 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Apr 2023
After · 13 May 2023

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 9 May 2023 the air beside the fire reached 73 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 51: 3.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak73 µg/m³
Days over the guideline12 days
PM10104 µg/m³
Optical depth1.35
252627282930123456789
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 · 179Every 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 Amatepec fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 April 2023 and 6 May 2023: 10 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 3,384 hectares (33.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cutzamala de Pinzón (2,685 ha, 2.0 %); Amatepec (718 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, class Extreme.
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
What do you think is wrong?

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.