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Coyuca de Catalán fire, 31 March 2017 Coyuca de Catalán, Zirándaro

Out · last detection 1 May 2017, 08:57 UTC

The fire started on 31 March 2017 in Coyuca de Catalán, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 33 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,126 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 28th largest in Guerrero since 2016 (of 612 with a page). Number 19 in Mexico in 2017, of 374.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Zirándaro · 2016Coyuca de Catalán · 2016Coyuca de Catalán · 2019Coyuca de Catalán · 2021

Burnt area
11,126ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
33days
31 Mar 2017 – 2 May 2017
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
31 Mar
2017
Heat detections
557
in a single hotspot: 38 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Average daily power
86MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Mar2 May
1 May 2017

How it evolved, day by day

31 Mar 2017 · 130 MW · 11 1 Apr 2017 · 2 MW · 1 3 Apr 2017 · 200 MW · 15 4 Apr 2017 · 92 MW · 14 5 Apr 2017 · 42 MW · 11 6 Apr 2017 · 72 MW · 17 7 Apr 2017 · 96 MW · 31 9 Apr 2017 · 178 MW · 42 10 Apr 2017 · 164 MW · 38 11 Apr 2017 · 164 MW · 56 12 Apr 2017 · 30 MW · 15 13 Apr 2017 · 21 MW · 10 14 Apr 2017 · 22 MW · 3 15 Apr 2017 · 23 MW · 5 16 Apr 2017 · 3 MW · 2 17 Apr 2017 · 15 MW · 2 18 Apr 2017 · 219 MW · 24 19 Apr 2017 · 250 MW · 50 20 Apr 2017 · 204 MW · 47 21 Apr 2017 · 167 MW · 45 22 Apr 2017 · 124 MW · 56 23 Apr 2017 · 24 MW · 13 24 Apr 2017 · 92 MW · 25 25 Apr 2017 · 6 MW · 4 26 Apr 2017 · 9 MW · 6 27 Apr 2017 · 1 MW · 1 30 Apr 2017 · 37 MW · 4 1 May 2017 · 9 MW · 9
31 Mar 5 Apr 10 Apr 14 Apr 18 Apr 19 Apr 22 Apr 26 Apr

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
45km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 3 May.

This area had burned before

7% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 742 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 7% of the area of London (111 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Coyuca de Catalán where it started
    7,277 ha reached on 31 Mar
    2.2 %
  2. Zirándaro
    3,905 ha reached on 9 Apr
    1.8 %

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 2015
Built-up area0.81 ha
Residents≈ 60

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.81 hectares of built-up land and about 60 residents (GHSL 2015, 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.

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)
31 Mar 24.5 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
1 Apr 25.5 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
2 Apr 25.1 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
3 Apr 25.3 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
4 Apr 26.7 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Apr 27.6 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Apr 26.4 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Apr 28.6 °C 11 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Apr 25.8 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Apr 25.3 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
10 Apr 26.7 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Apr 27.5 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Apr 26.4 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
13 Apr 25.3 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.6 mm High 26
14 Apr 25.9 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
15 Apr 24.9 °C 32 % 39 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
16 Apr 25.3 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
17 Apr 25.0 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
18 Apr 25.9 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Apr 24.9 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Apr 25.4 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
21 Apr 24.9 °C 9 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Apr 25.1 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.3 mm High 35
23 Apr 25.4 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.7 mm High 24
24 Apr 24.7 °C 37 % 45 km/h 0.3 mm High 25
25 Apr 25.7 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Apr 24.3 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
27 Apr 23.8 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
28 Apr 25.3 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
29 Apr 24.7 °C 35 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
30 Apr 26.5 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
1 May 25.8 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
2 May 25.9 °C 39 % 38 km/h 1.6 mm Moderate 12
3 May after 24.6 °C 42 % 34 km/h 1.5 mm Low 10

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Mar 2017
After · 9 May 2017

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 557Every 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 Coyuca de Catalán fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 31 March 2017 to 2 May 2017 (33 days). The perimeter dates it from 31 March 2017 to 26 April 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 11,126 hectares (111.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Coyuca de Catalán (7,277 ha, 2.2 %); Zirándaro (3,905 ha, 1.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.6 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 45 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 · 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.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

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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 31 March 2017 to 26 April 2017. 557 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 2015, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.