Tejupilco fire, April 2024 Tejupilco, Cutzamala de Pinzón, Luvianos
The fire started on 26 April 2024 in Tejupilco, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,103 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 8th largest in México since 2016 (of 27 with a page). Number 104 in Mexico in 2024, of 289.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 3,103ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 12days
- 26 Apr 2024 – 7 May 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 26 Apr
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 141
- in a single hotspot: 70 MW
- Danger at start
- 45
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 139MW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
55% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,618 ha in 2019, 719 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,722 ha that had burned before.
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
-
Tejupilco where it started1,667 ha reached on 1 May2.5 %
-
1,360 ha reached on 26 Apr1.0 %
-
93 ha reached on 3 May0.1 %
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.
Several official records match this area
According to CONAFOR, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 2,380 ha (the satellite measured 3,103 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.
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 Cutzamala de Pinzón San Sebastian 3 May 2024 1,074 ha · extinguished on 7 May 2024 · cause: unknown
- 2 Tejupilco Arroyo del Salto / Desconocido 5 May 2024 1,306 ha · extinguished on 8 May 2024 · cause: unknown
Total according to CONAFOR: 2,380 ha, 77 % of the 3,103 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 May | 34.3 °C | 19 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 2 May | 34.8 °C | 18 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 3 May | 36.0 °C | 18 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 4 May | 36.8 °C | 18 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 5 May | 36.9 °C | 18 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 6 May | 35.8 °C | 17 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 7 May | 37.0 °C | 14 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 8 May after | 37.3 °C | 14 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 9 May after | 38.4 °C | 14 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 10 May after | 37.0 °C | 14 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 11 May after | 36.3 °C | 15 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 12 May after | 35.8 °C | 16 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 13 May after | 35.2 °C | 19 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 14 May after | 35.4 °C | 19 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 15 May after | 35.6 °C | 22 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 16 May after | 34.9 °C | 23 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 17 May after | 34.8 °C | 23 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
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 6 May 2024 the air beside the fire reached 50 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 28: 1.8 times the WHO daily 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 · 141Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Tejupilco fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 April 2024 to 7 May 2024 (12 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 May 2024 to 7 May 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,103 hectares (31.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Tejupilco (1,667 ha, 2.5 %); Cutzamala de Pinzón (1,360 ha, 1.0 %); Luvianos (93 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 1 May 2024 → 26 April 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 1 May 2024 to 7 May 2024. 141 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with CONAFOR: 2,380 official ha against 3,103 ha of perimeter; similar, but with reservations.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.