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Villa Corzo fire, 24 April 2023 Villa Corzo, Villaflores

Out · last detection 9 May 2023, 19:37 UTC

The fire started on 24 April 2023 in Villa Corzo, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,034 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 15th largest in Chiapas since 2016 (of 267 with a page). Number 32 in Mexico in 2023, of 285.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Villa Corzo · 2019Villa Corzo · 2024Villaflores · 2019Villaflores · 2024

Burnt area
6,034ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
18days
24 Apr 2023 – 11 May 2023
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
24 Apr
2023
Heat detections
437
in a single hotspot: 69 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Average daily power
268MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Apr11 May
9 May 2023

How it evolved, day by day

24 Apr 2023 · 103 MW · 13 25 Apr 2023 · 422 MW · 54 26 Apr 2023 · 873 MW · 90 27 Apr 2023 · 513 MW · 72 28 Apr 2023 · 664 MW · 75 29 Apr 2023 · 716 MW · 70 30 Apr 2023 · 104 MW · 15 1 May 2023 · 11 MW · 6 2 May 2023 · 19 MW · 3 3 May 2023 · 12 MW · 2 4 May 2023 · 22 MW · 5 5 May 2023 · 8 MW · 1 7 May 2023 · 430 MW · 21 8 May 2023 · 109 MW · 9 9 May 2023 · 8 MW · 1
24 Apr 26 Apr 27 Apr 30 Apr 3 May 7 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

33°high
53km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 12 May.

This area had burned before

24% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,243 ha in 2018, 199 ha in 2019.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.8% of the area of London (60 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. Villa Corzo where it started
    5,999 ha reached on 24 Apr
    2.2 %
  2. Villaflores
    70 ha reached on 29 Apr
    0.0 %

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 2025
Built-up area2.0 ha
Residents≈ 100

Inside the perimeter there were about 2.0 hectares of built-up land and about 100 residents (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

Official record

Several official records match this area

According to CONAFOR, 3 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 4,191 ha (the satellite measured 6,034 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.

When each one burned

1 2,266 ha 2 1,602 ha 3 323 ha
23 Apr10 May
negligence
  1. 1 Villa Corzo Washintón / La Sandía 23 April 2023 2,266 ha · extinguished on 30 April 2023 · cause: negligence
  2. 2 Villa Corzo Franciso I Madero/ La Sandia 2 28 April 2023 1,602 ha · extinguished on 3 May 2023 · cause: negligence
  3. 3 Villa Corzo Las Limas/ Las Guayabitas 6 May 2023 323 ha · extinguished on 11 May 2023 · cause: negligence

Total according to CONAFOR: 4,191 ha, 69 % of the 6,034 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)
24 Apr 28.3 °C 40 % 41 km/h 0.3 mm High 24
25 Apr 30.5 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
26 Apr 30.1 °C 34 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Apr 29.9 °C 36 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Apr 30.1 °C 33 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
29 Apr 29.8 °C 32 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
30 Apr 26.2 °C 52 % 53 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
1 May 30.7 °C 42 % 37 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 21
2 May 30.1 °C 48 % 41 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 21
3 May 31.9 °C 39 % 28 km/h 0.3 mm High 22
4 May 31.9 °C 40 % 30 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 16
5 May 32.6 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.3 mm High 23
6 May 32.4 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.4 mm High 26
7 May 32.7 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.8 mm High 24
8 May 31.9 °C 41 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
9 May 30.4 °C 52 % 33 km/h 0.3 mm High 24
10 May 29.1 °C 60 % 35 km/h 1.8 mm Low 9
11 May 28.4 °C 52 % 44 km/h 1.9 mm Low 9
12 May after 29.5 °C 55 % 36 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Apr 2023
After · 18 May 2023

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 5 May 2023 the air beside the fire reached 59 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 38: 2.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak59 µg/m³
Days over the guideline11 days
PM1086 µg/m³
Optical depth1.76
2223242526272829301234567
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 · 437Every 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 Villa Corzo fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 24 April 2023 to 11 May 2023 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 24 April 2023 to 4 May 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,034 hectares (60.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Villa Corzo (5,999 ha, 2.2 %); Villaflores (70 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.7 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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 ›

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 24 April 2023 to 4 May 2023. 437 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with CONAFOR: 4,191 official ha against 6,034 ha of perimeter; similar, but with reservations.
  • 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.

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.