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Tepechitlán fire, March 2025 Tepechitlán, Jalpa, Santa María de la Paz

Out · last detection 7 Apr 2025, 08:19 UTC

The fire started on 30 March 2025 in Tepechitlán, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,460 hectares from heat detections, spread across 5 municipalities.

It is the 5th largest in Zacatecas since 2016 (of 31 with a page). Number 19 in Mexico in 2025, of 167.

Burnt area
6,460ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
30 Mar 2025 – 7 Apr 2025
Municipalities hit
5
municipalities
Started on
30 Mar
2025
Heat detections
518
in a single hotspot: 107 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
6.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Apr 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Mar7 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

30311234567

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
59km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

9% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 571 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Tepechitlán where it started
    4,220 ha reached on 29 Mar
    7.7 %
  2. Jalpa
    1,574 ha reached on 30 Mar
    2.2 %
  3. Santa María de la Paz
    615 ha reached on 2 Apr
    2.2 %
  4. Tlaltenango de Sánchez Román
    44 ha
    0.1 %
  5. Apozol
    39 ha
    0.1 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre 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)
29 Mar 24.7 °C 8 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
30 Mar 26.6 °C 6 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
31 Mar 27.5 °C 8 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Apr 26.9 °C 11 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
2 Apr 25.6 °C 12 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
3 Apr 24.4 °C 14 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
4 Apr 22.9 °C 21 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 Apr 22.7 °C 20 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
6 Apr 22.8 °C 13 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Apr 21.8 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Apr after 22.4 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
9 Apr after 24.9 °C 13 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Apr after 26.4 °C 10 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 Apr after 25.9 °C 7 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Apr after 25.3 °C 8 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Apr after 26.6 °C 7 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Apr after 27.6 °C 11 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 Apr after 28.5 °C 7 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Apr after 25.1 °C 9 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Apr after 27.7 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Mar 2025
After · 14 Apr 2025

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 · Copernicus

On 3 April 2025 the air beside the fire reached 92 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 41: 2.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak92 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM1093 µg/m³
Optical depth0.28
272829303112345678910111213141516
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 518Every 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 Tepechitlán fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 March 2025 and 7 April 2025: 9 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,460 hectares (64.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 5 municipalities: Tepechitlán (4,220 ha, 7.7 %); Jalpa (1,574 ha, 2.2 %); Santa María de la Paz (615 ha, 2.2 %); Tlaltenango de Sánchez Román (44 ha, 0.1 %); Apozol (39 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.5 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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

Satellite cross-check

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.

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.