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Zirándaro fire, April 2017 Zirándaro, Coyuca de Catalán

Out · last detection 14 May 2017, 08:13 UTC

The fire started on 6 April 2017 in Zirándaro, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 39 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 21,752 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 10th largest in Guerrero since 2016 (of 612 with a page). Number 4 in Mexico in 2017, of 374.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Zirándaro · 2016Zirándaro · 2016Coyuca de Catalán · 2021Coyuca de Catalán · 2019

Burnt area
21,752ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
39days
6 Apr 2017 – 14 May 2017
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
6 Apr
2017
Heat detections
1,282
in a single hotspot: 51 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
161MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Apr14 May
14 May 2017

How it evolved, day by day

6 Apr 2017 · 6 MW · 1 7 Apr 2017 · 119 MW · 35 9 Apr 2017 · 237 MW · 61 10 Apr 2017 · 308 MW · 68 11 Apr 2017 · 540 MW · 113 12 Apr 2017 · 365 MW · 96 13 Apr 2017 · 113 MW · 34 14 Apr 2017 · 149 MW · 26 15 Apr 2017 · 60 MW · 15 16 Apr 2017 · 299 MW · 36 17 Apr 2017 · 64 MW · 12 18 Apr 2017 · 230 MW · 31 19 Apr 2017 · 92 MW · 24 20 Apr 2017 · 56 MW · 12 21 Apr 2017 · 95 MW · 20 22 Apr 2017 · 138 MW · 39 23 Apr 2017 · 86 MW · 31 24 Apr 2017 · 354 MW · 43 25 Apr 2017 · 246 MW · 65 26 Apr 2017 · 329 MW · 75 27 Apr 2017 · 45 MW · 36 28 Apr 2017 · 42 MW · 16 29 Apr 2017 · 17 MW · 10 30 Apr 2017 · 435 MW · 49 1 May 2017 · 977 MW · 133 2 May 2017 · 270 MW · 72 3 May 2017 · 102 MW · 39 4 May 2017 · 31 MW · 14 5 May 2017 · 21 MW · 13 6 May 2017 · 18 MW · 10 7 May 2017 · 22 MW · 3 8 May 2017 · 2 MW · 3 9 May 2017 · 13 MW · 7 10 May 2017 · 11 MW · 2 11 May 2017 · 104 MW · 15 12 May 2017 · 82 MW · 14 13 May 2017 · 40 MW · 8 14 May 2017 · 1 MW · 1
6 Apr 13 Apr 19 Apr 25 Apr 1 May 7 May 13 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

32°high
49km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 777 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 14% of the area of London (218 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. Zirándaro where it started
    17,840 ha reached on 6 Apr
    8.3 %
  2. Coyuca de Catalán
    4,020 ha reached on 9 Apr
    1.2 %

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 area2.2 ha
Residents≈ 150

Inside the perimeter there were about 2.2 hectares of built-up land and about 150 residents (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)
6 Apr 30.1 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Apr 32.4 °C 10 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Apr 29.4 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Apr 29.3 °C 27 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Apr 30.8 °C 18 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
11 Apr 31.5 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
12 Apr 30.7 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Apr 28.5 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 39
14 Apr 29.9 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Apr 29.0 °C 25 % 48 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 41
16 Apr 28.4 °C 21 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
17 Apr 29.0 °C 20 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Apr 29.4 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Apr 29.2 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Apr 29.6 °C 11 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
21 Apr 28.8 °C 10 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
22 Apr 29.2 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 43
23 Apr 29.8 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.8 mm High 31
24 Apr 28.4 °C 30 % 46 km/h 0.3 mm High 33
25 Apr 29.4 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Apr 28.4 °C 25 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Apr 27.1 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Apr 29.3 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Apr 28.8 °C 26 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
30 Apr 30.6 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 May 30.4 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
2 May 30.0 °C 30 % 37 km/h 1.6 mm Moderate 21
3 May 28.7 °C 35 % 38 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 18
4 May 30.6 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
5 May 28.4 °C 34 % 40 km/h 2.2 mm Moderate 13
6 May 27.0 °C 43 % 44 km/h 4.0 mm Low 6
7 May 29.2 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
8 May 28.2 °C 30 % 46 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
9 May 28.7 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
10 May 30.1 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.3 mm High 29
11 May 30.7 °C 29 % 45 km/h 0.5 mm High 32
12 May 28.7 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.4 mm High 31
13 May 29.5 °C 30 % 40 km/h 1.3 mm High 22
14 May 29.4 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
15 May after 30.6 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.8 mm High 26
16 May after 31.0 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
17 May after 31.1 °C 28 % 43 km/h 0.2 mm High 32
18 May after 32.3 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 May after 32.0 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 May after 31.1 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 May after 31.8 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 May after 30.3 °C 40 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
23 May after 30.2 °C 35 % 42 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
24 May after 29.8 °C 37 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Mar 2017
After · 21 May 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 · 1,282Every 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 Zirándaro fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 6 April 2017 to 14 May 2017 (39 days). The perimeter dates it from 6 April 2017 to 9 May 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 21,752 hectares (217.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Zirándaro (17,840 ha, 8.3 %); Coyuca de Catalán (4,020 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.4 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 49 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 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.

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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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 6 April 2017 to 9 May 2017. 1,282 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.