How long did the Mochitlán fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 25 April 2017 to 20 May 2017 (26 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 April 2017 to 14 May 2017.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,595 hectares (46.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Juan R. Escudero (3,342 ha, 8.1 %); Mochitlán (970 ha, 1.9 %); Chilpancingo de los Bravo (309 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, class 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.

MX · Mexico · 2017-04-25 → 2017-05-20

Mochitlán fire, April 2017 Juan R. Escudero, Mochitlán, Chilpancingo de los Bravo

Out · last detection 20 May 2017, 08:01 UTC

The fire started on 25 April 2017 in Mochitlán, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,595 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 115th largest in Guerrero since 2016 (of 612 with a page). Number 78 in Mexico in 2017, of 374.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Chilpancingo de los Bravo · 2021 Chilpancingo de los Bravo · 2018 Chilpancingo de los Bravo · 2019 Chilpancingo de los Bravo · 2019

Burnt area: 4,595ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 26days; 25 Apr 2017 – 20 May 2017
Municipalities hit: 3; municipalities
Started on: 25 Apr; 2017
Heat detections: 210; in a single hotspot: 30 MW
Danger at start: 37; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 47MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Apr20 May

Play back 20 May 2017

How it evolved, day by day

25 Apr 30 Apr 4 May 9 May 10 May 13 May 19 May

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

The weather it burned in

31°high

48km/h · peak gust

26%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.2 mm on 22 May.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 2.9% of the area of London (46 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

Juan R. Escudero

3,342 ha reached on 25 Apr

8.1 %
Mochitlán where it started

970 ha reached on 27 Apr

1.9 %
Chilpancingo de los Bravo 283,354 inhabitants

309 ha reached on 28 Apr

0.1 %

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 area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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)
25 Apr	29.0 °C	26 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
26 Apr	27.7 °C	33 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
27 Apr	28.2 °C	42 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
28 Apr	28.4 °C	44 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
29 Apr	28.5 °C	36 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
30 Apr	29.5 °C	38 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
1 May	29.5 °C	39 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
2 May	30.2 °C	33 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
3 May	29.8 °C	37 %	46 km/h	0.6 mm	High 27
4 May	30.0 °C	40 %	42 km/h	0.7 mm	High 24
5 May	28.6 °C	43 %	44 km/h	2.9 mm	Low 8
6 May	27.5 °C	51 %	38 km/h	4.5 mm	Very low 4
7 May	29.3 °C	35 %	47 km/h	0.2 mm	Moderate 16
8 May	29.2 °C	36 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
9 May	29.4 °C	34 %	36 km/h	0.1 mm	High 24
10 May	30.3 °C	34 %	40 km/h	0.6 mm	High 23
11 May	30.9 °C	31 %	46 km/h	0.1 mm	High 27
12 May	28.9 °C	39 %	41 km/h	0.2 mm	High 27
13 May	28.3 °C	42 %	39 km/h	5.5 mm	Very low 5
14 May	26.7 °C	56 %	36 km/h	2.8 mm	Very low 4
15 May	27.6 °C	59 %	33 km/h	4.2 mm	Very low 2
16 May	29.3 °C	52 %	37 km/h	1.3 mm	Very low 4
17 May	28.5 °C	51 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
18 May	31.4 °C	42 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
19 May	31.0 °C	41 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
20 May	28.8 °C	46 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
21 May after	28.8 °C	46 %	40 km/h	0.8 mm	Moderate 14
22 May after	27.9 °C	54 %	34 km/h	4.2 mm	Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 18 Apr 2017

After · 27 May 2017

Before After

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 · 210Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

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Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mochitlán fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 25 April 2017 to 20 May 2017 (26 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 April 2017 to 14 May 2017.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,595 hectares (46.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Juan R. Escudero (3,342 ha, 8.1 %); Mochitlán (970 ha, 1.9 %); Chilpancingo de los Bravo (309 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, class 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 ›

CONAFOR · Comisión Nacional Forestal ↗
CENAPRED ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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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.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 27 April 2017 to 14 May 2017. 210 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.

Where it burned