Conafor: Tepozteco wildfire completely contained after 9 days

The National Forest Commission (Conafor) said connected Thursday that a analyzable of wildfires burning successful the El Tepozteco National Park, conscionable southbound of Mexico City, has been contained.

The occurrence — which started April 9 adjacent the colony of Santo Domingo Ocotitlán, Morelos — consumed much than 1,200 hectares of the earthy protected area supra and to the eastbound of the metropolis of Tepoztlán. 

Hoy se han reportado 123 #IncendiosForestales activos 🔥🌳, donde cerca de 👨‍🚒5 mil personas combatientes hacen tareas de power y liquidación del fuego.

Si buscas más detalles, ingresa a https://t.co/slAUqRK5vY pic.twitter.com/GycrGtkLk4

— CONAFOR (@CONAFOR) April 17, 2025

As of Thursday evening, it had been 90% controlled and 85% extinguished.

Tepoztlán Mayor Perseo Quiroz, citing the magnitude of clip it took to incorporate the wildfire, said it was among the biggest and astir destructive successful caller memory. 

The politician said that aboriginal indications are that the occurrence was caused by quality activity, speculating that the culprit apt hoped to trim the Natural Park acreage and person the country rezoned for different uses. 

On March 31, state authorities opened an arson investigation related to a wildfire northbound of Tepoztlán that threatened the iconic pyramid successful the El Tepozteco Archaeological Zone.

Conafor credited businesslike organizational efforts from the Regional Incident Management Team (REMI) for containing and suppressing the blaze arsenic it dispersed southbound from Santo Domingo Ocotitlán — astir 80 kilometers southbound of Mexico City — to Amatlán de Quetzalcóatl, astir 10 kilometers away.

The REMI utilized 400 state, municipal and assemblage firemen who battled precocious winds and debased temperatures which created a hazardous thermal belt. A thermal loop refers to a set of warmer aerial that forms connected slopes owed to drainage winds, producing strong, localized updrafts and downdrafts that tin bounds the effectiveness of aerial tankers. 

Late Thursday, 2 aerial tankers were removed to combat fires elsewhere, portion 2 stay successful the country to guarantee that the El Tepozteco wildfire is wholly suppressed.

Conafor reported that 123 wildfires stay ablaze successful 28 states, and much than 52,000 hectares person been damaged. At slightest 33 of the fires are located successful Natural Protected Areas.

Saved from wildfire: the stunning ruins of Tepozteco. (Margarito Pérez Retana/Cuartoscuro)

The states astir affected by wildfires are Chihuahua, Michoacán, Oaxaca, Guerrero, Morelos, Durango and Sinaloa.

More than 4,300 firefighters are presently successful the field, successful summation to Conafor officials and section agents.

While firefighters person suppressed 31 wildfires successful the past week, the fig of progressive wildfires has really accrued since Sunday (114), with 14,000 further hectares affected. 

Among the fires suppressed this week was the Chichinautzin Biological Corridor-El Tepozteco wildfire, which straddled Milpa Alta, Mexico City’s southernmost borough, and the nationalist wood northbound of Tlalnepantla, Morelos. 

Conafor besides reported that a 35-hectare occurrence that threatened to encroach connected the Mexico City-Cuernavaca (Morelos) road had been afloat extinguished.

With reports from La Jornada, Milenio, Diario de México and Infobae