Guachochi fire, 18 May 2024 Guachochi
The fire started on 18 May 2024 in Guachochi, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,754 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality. According to CONAFOR, the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 19 May 2024 and declared extinguished on 26 May 2024.
It is the 186th largest in Chihuahua since 2016 (of 234 with a page). Number 236 in Mexico in 2024, of 289.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 1,754ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 9days
- 18 May 2024 – 26 May 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 18 May
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 108
- in a single hotspot: 38 MW
- Danger at start
- 47
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 86MW
- 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 47 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
17% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 298 ha in 2018.
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
-
Guachochi where it started1,757 ha reached on 18 May0.2 %
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 was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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
Complex of 2 fires according to CONAFOR
According to CONAFOR, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 1,481 ha (the satellite measured 1,754 ha).
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 Guachochi Ej. Tonachi (Matachique-Gobernadora) 19 May 2024 1,185 ha · extinguished on 26 May 2024 · cause: negligence
- 2 Guachochi Ej. Tonachi (Recubirachi) 20 May 2024 297 ha · extinguished on 23 May 2024 · cause: negligence
Total according to CONAFOR: 1,481 ha, 84 % of the 1,754 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 May | 30.4 °C | 13 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 20 May | 30.3 °C | 15 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 21 May | 27.5 °C | 19 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 22 May | 26.9 °C | 16 % | 60 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 23 May | 26.2 °C | 16 % | 65 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 24 May | 27.0 °C | 14 % | 62 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 25 May | 27.9 °C | 12 % | 60 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 26 May | 28.7 °C | 19 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 27 May after | 28.8 °C | 22 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 28 May after | 29.6 °C | 19 % | 61 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 29 May after | 29.4 °C | 18 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 30 May after | 28.1 °C | 13 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 31 May after | 29.6 °C | 12 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 1 Jun after | 29.3 °C | 18 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 2 Jun after | 29.9 °C | 17 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 3 Jun after | 28.5 °C | 15 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 4 Jun after | 28.4 °C | 17 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
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 21 May 2024 the air beside the fire reached 16 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 108Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 4,397 haBatopilasJune 2021 · 6 days · 9 km away
- 9,720 haGuachochiMay 2025 · 19 days · 12 km away
- 6,025 haGuachochi7 June 2021 · 12 days · 17 km away
- 2,720 haGuachochi9 June 2021 · 8 days · 34 km away
- 2,948 haGuadalupe y Calvo21 April 2025 · 15 days · 36 km away
- 5,771 haMorelosMay 2024 · 22 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Guachochi fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 18 May 2024 to 26 May 2024 (9 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 May 2024 to 25 May 2024. According to CONAFOR, the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 19 May 2024 and declared extinguished on 26 May 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,754 hectares (17.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Guachochi (1,757 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 30.4 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 65 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 25 May 2024 → 26 May 2024.
- Start date: 19 May 2024 → 18 May 2024.
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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 19 May 2024 to 25 May 2024. 108 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with CONAFOR: 1,481 official ha against 1,754 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- 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.