Arriaga fire, December 2023 Arriaga, San Pedro Tapanatepec
The fire started on 31 December 2023 in Arriaga, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,704 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 221th largest in Chiapas since 2016 (of 267 with a page). Number 239 in Mexico in 2023, of 285.
The power measured by the satellite is low (18.9 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
- 1,704ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 31 Dec 2023 – 6 Jan 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 31 Dec
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 65
- in a single hotspot: 19 MW
- Danger at start
- 21
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 40MW
- 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 39 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 8 Jan.
This area had burned before
69% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 459 ha in 2017, 657 ha in 2018, 1,009 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,182 ha that had burned before.
- 657 ha Arriaga fire, January 2018 2,786 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 424 ha Arriaga fire, March 2017 5,611 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 158 ha Arriaga fire, March 2021 5,611 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
-
Arriaga where it started866 ha reached on 31 Dec1.1 %
-
847 ha reached on 31 Dec0.8 %
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 0.47 hectares of built-up land and about 30 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
Several official records match this area
According to CONAFOR, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 712 ha (the satellite measured 1,704 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.
CONAFOR records each fire that started at a different time or place separately; the satellite sees a single burned area, so this page groups them together. The numbers on the map show where each one started.
- 1 San Pedro Tapanatepec Los Corazones 31 December 2023 474 ha · extinguished on 7 January 2024 · cause: unknown
- 2 Arriaga Innominado/ San Ramon 1 January 2024 237 ha · extinguished on 4 January 2024 · cause: negligence
Total according to CONAFOR: 712 ha, 42 % of the 1,704 ha in the satellite perimeter.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31 Dec | 29.0 °C | 43 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 1 Jan | 29.7 °C | 44 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 2 Jan | 29.7 °C | 48 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 3 Jan | 28.2 °C | 55 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 4 Jan | 30.0 °C | 48 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 5 Jan | 27.6 °C | 60 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 6 Jan | 28.3 °C | 52 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 7 Jan after | 30.2 °C | 49 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 8 Jan after | 28.7 °C | 59 % | 37 km/h | 1.1 mm | Low 11 |
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 9 January 2024 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 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 · 65Every 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 Arriaga fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 31 December 2023 and 6 January 2024: 7 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 1,704 hectares (17.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Arriaga (866 ha, 1.1 %); San Pedro Tapanatepec (847 ha, 0.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 30.0 °C, humidity dropped to 43 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 21, 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.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 65 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with CONAFOR: 712 official ha against 1,704 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.