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Coyuca de Catalán fire, 21 March 2018 Coyuca de Catalán

Out · last detection 2 Apr 2018, 20:07 UTC

The fire started on 21 March 2018 in Coyuca de Catalán, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,157 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 219th largest in Guerrero since 2016 (of 612 with a page). Number 72 in Mexico in 2018, of 233.

The power measured by the satellite is low (15.0 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…

Suggestions: Coyuca de Catalán · 2017Coyuca de Catalán · 2017Coyuca de Catalán · 2017Ajuchitlán del Progreso · 2019

Burnt area
3,157ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
21 Mar 2018 – 2 Apr 2018
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
21 Mar
2018
Heat detections
115
in a single hotspot: 15 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
24MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Mar2 Apr
2 Apr 2018

How it evolved, day by day

21 Mar 2018 · 8 MW · 4 22 Mar 2018 · 28 MW · 12 23 Mar 2018 · 27 MW · 12 24 Mar 2018 · 10 MW · 8 25 Mar 2018 · 23 MW · 13 26 Mar 2018 · 58 MW · 18 27 Mar 2018 · 24 MW · 11 29 Mar 2018 · 47 MW · 19 30 Mar 2018 · 7 MW · 4 31 Mar 2018 · 37 MW · 9 1 Apr 2018 · 17 MW · 4 2 Apr 2018 · 2 MW · 1
21 Mar 23 Mar 25 Mar 26 Mar 27 Mar 30 Mar 1 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

36°high
41km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

51% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,695 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,600 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2% of the area of London (32 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
    3,175 ha reached on 21 Mar
    0.9 %

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 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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)
21 Mar 35.9 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
22 Mar 35.7 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Mar 35.4 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Mar 35.2 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
25 Mar 35.3 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Mar 35.0 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Mar 35.7 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
28 Mar 34.9 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
29 Mar 35.1 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Mar 33.5 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Mar 34.3 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Apr 35.7 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Apr 36.1 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
3 Apr after 35.5 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Apr after 37.0 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 Apr after 35.7 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Apr after 34.7 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Apr after 34.8 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Apr after 35.7 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Apr after 35.7 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
10 Apr after 36.9 °C 9 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
11 Apr after 33.6 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 46
12 Apr after 34.8 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Mar 2018
After · 9 Apr 2018

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 · 115Every 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 21 March 2018 to 2 April 2018 (13 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 March 2018 to 31 March 2018.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,157 hectares (31.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Coyuca de Catalán (3,175 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.1 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 21 March 2018 to 31 March 2018. 115 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 2020, 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.