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Ometepec fire, March 2017 Ometepec

Out · last detection 3 Apr 2017, 20:32 UTC

The fire started on 20 March 2017 in Ometepec, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,730 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 264th largest in Guerrero since 2016 (of 612 with a page). Number 150 in Mexico in 2017, of 374.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Azoyú · 2024Santiago Llano Grande · 2018Igualapa · 2017Igualapa · 2021

Burnt area
2,730ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
20 Mar 2017 – 3 Apr 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
20 Mar
2017
Heat detections
122
in a single hotspot: 110 MW
Danger at start
38
High · FWI index
Average daily power
114MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Mar3 Apr
3 Apr 2017

How it evolved, day by day

20 Mar 2017 · 215 MW · 10 21 Mar 2017 · 149 MW · 18 22 Mar 2017 · 75 MW · 8 23 Mar 2017 · 358 MW · 21 24 Mar 2017 · 311 MW · 18 25 Mar 2017 · 257 MW · 25 26 Mar 2017 · 64 MW · 10 27 Mar 2017 · 5 MW · 2 30 Mar 2017 · 13 MW · 2 31 Mar 2017 · 7 MW · 3 1 Apr 2017 · 18 MW · 2 2 Apr 2017 · 3 MW · 1 3 Apr 2017 · 3 MW · 2
20 Mar 22 Mar 23 Mar 24 Mar 26 Mar 30 Mar 1 Apr 3 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

37°high
46km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.7% of the area of London (27 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. Ometepec where it started
    2,745 ha reached on 20 Mar
    4.5 %

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.

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)
20 Mar 37.1 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
21 Mar 35.2 °C 34 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Mar 34.3 °C 40 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Mar 35.4 °C 33 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Mar 35.2 °C 33 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Mar 35.2 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
26 Mar 34.5 °C 43 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Mar 35.3 °C 44 % 41 km/h 0.3 mm High 33
28 Mar 33.8 °C 48 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
29 Mar 35.3 °C 33 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Mar 33.5 °C 38 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
31 Mar 33.7 °C 41 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Apr 35.2 °C 35 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Apr 34.2 °C 42 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Apr 33.2 °C 39 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Apr after 34.0 °C 41 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Apr after 35.6 °C 34 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Apr after 36.1 °C 32 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
7 Apr after 37.1 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Apr after 36.5 °C 31 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Apr after 36.2 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Apr after 35.0 °C 39 % 40 km/h 0.2 mm High 35
11 Apr after 36.5 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 Apr after 36.4 °C 35 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
13 Apr after 36.1 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Mar 2017
After · 10 Apr 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 · 122Every 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 Ometepec fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 20 March 2017 to 3 April 2017 (15 days). The perimeter dates it from 20 March 2017 to 27 March 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,730 hectares (27.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ometepec (2,745 ha, 4.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 46 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.

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 20 March 2017 to 27 March 2017. 122 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.

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.