Heat and Government Omissions Fuel Fires in Mexico

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Emilio Godoy / IPS - As Mexico wildfires intensify, Indigenous and rural communities face rising heat, drought, and scarce government support in battling the climate crisis

by Emilio Godoy (mexico city)
Wednesday, November 12, 2025
Inter Press Service

MEXICO CITY, November 12 (IPS) - “This issue has been spiralling out of control year after year. The first responders are the communities themselves. There is no information explaining what a wildfire is in our native language (Mixtec), not even a pamphlet or video that can be distributed”, indigenous language education student Estela Aranda tells IPS.

The 30-year-old Ayuuk jä’äy (Mixe) student, who is from the Santa Anita community in the Copanatoyac town in the southern state of Guerrero, pointed out that the community doesn’t know how to deal with serious fires because “there has been no guidance from people who know how to handle them”.

In 2024, the community was alarmed by a fire, and there was another one in Tlapa de Comonfort, an adjacent municipality, in March. The first fire “lasted several days and destroyed a lot of vegetation”, says Aranda, whose 1364-people community relies primarily on small-scale livestock farming and growing corn, beans and squash.

“Nature feeds us, guides us and connects us. When it suffers fires, we care for it with great responsibility and all our heart because it is everything to us”, she affirms.

This is a major concern, given that Copanatoyac, located around 350 kilometres south of Mexico City, has experienced an increase in fires since 2023. After three fires consumed 1096 hectares in 2024, two fires ravaged 114 hectares this year in one of the country’s poorest states, which is plagued by violence and ranks fifth in terms of historical burned area.

In surrounding municipalities, meanwhile, the number of fires increased from nine incidents affecting 1535 hectares in 2022 to 12 incidents affecting 1941 hectares in 2025, posing a potential threat due to the risk of flame expansion.

The 2020–2024 Fire Management Programme and regulations on methods for using flames on forest and agricultural land have failed to curb fires, which are intensified by heat and drought — consequences of the climate catastrophe. Added to this is the insufficiency of government resources.

The age of fire

Since 1970, for which official records exist, there have been 397 143 fires, with an average of over 300 000 hectares burned, totalling more than 18 million hectares.

The trend has been upward since 2020, in line with rising temperatures and drought, although there was a decrease in 2025, mainly due to abundant rainfall.

The first responders are the communities themselves. There is no information explaining what a wildfire is in our native language (Mixtec), not even a pamphlet or video that can be distributed

The central state of Mexico, neighbouring Mexico City, has reported the highest cumulative number of fires (88 274), followed by Mexico City itself (45 758) and the western state of Michoacán (44 243).

In terms of affected areas, the western state of Jalisco has suffered the greatest loss (1,67 million hectares), followed by the southern state of Chiapas (1,6 million) and the northern state of Chihuahua (1,56 million).

After three years, the intensity has subsided and the number of fires has dropped to 6824, affecting 1,16 million hectares.

Despite the decrease in the number of fires, the area burned per incident has been rising since 2020, almost tripling from 64 to 172 hectares by October 2025.

Regulations have also failed. The 2023 regulation on fire use in forests, agricultural land and surrounding areas instruct technical and environmental guidelines for controlled burns, but these have been violated, given that one-third of the fires originated from agricultural activities and another third from unknown causes in 2024, a category which also encompasses this possibility.

Similarly, the 2018 General Law on Sustainable Forest Development incorporates fire management in forest areas, addressing their ecological, social and environmental roles within ecosystems, and defining burn prevention, fire use planning and management, and rapid and effective responses to forest fires.

Added to this are the issues of impunity for intentional fires and a weak prevention culture.

The 2020–2024 Fire Management Programme consisted of 15 strategies, five of which were related to flames, and two of which were related to prevention and agricultural fire management measures. These measures were ineffective.

This issue is further compounded by the fact that Conafor itself acknowledges that the area affected by fires largely corresponds to fire-dependent ecosystems.

While fires have intensified, Conafor has eliminated direct firefighting support since 2020, forcing forest communities to include land clearing and firebreak installation tasks under other categories.

Despite forest-fires’ high incidence, Conafor has also suffered severe budget cuts. While allocated funds totalled $573 million in 2014, this year they fell to $133 million — one quarter of that amount. Although the budget had been rising since 2022, it fell again this year.

In response to IPS enquiries, Conafor attributes the fires to the impacts of climate catastrophe and places responsibility with states and municipalities.

“Fire management policy is based on strengthening inter-institutional coordination at all levels, as well as on the distribution of responsibilities, where municipal and state governments play a leading role given that they must operate their own fire management programmes within their respective territorial jurisdictions”, the agency states.

It also indicates that 1700 firefighters are employed, and that 266 fire brigades are subsidised, as well as regulations on controlled burns being disseminated.

Land of fire

Guerrero is not an exceptional case. Neighbouring Oaxaca experiences a similar situation.

Juan Reyes, an indigenous Zapotec, knows well what it means to face forest fires from his experience as a municipal official and as a resident of at-risk communities.

“The fires were very intense; we couldn’t handle them, even with all our personnel. The authorities didn’t respond; the state government didn’t respond either. Things went badly for us. People became alarmed later when the fire spread and burned more hectares”, the elementary school teacher recalls to IPS in Las Cuevas, in the Oaxacan municipality of Santo Domingo de Morelos.

Reyes, who is 39 years old, is married and has two children, served as the councilman for Public Works between 2020 and 2022, and has also witnessed the impact of fire on his community since then. The village is home to around 1000 people, and the main crops grown there are hibiscus, mango, watermelon, melon, papaya and tamarind.

The village experienced the heat firsthand. “We had no knowledge of anything until, after three or four days and several calls from the mayor and the council, they finally responded. Conafor sent a small team. They called more people, and we organised and put in the firebreak”, he evokes.

However, the fire had already burned through four or five hectares and was threatening two other communities. “It lasted eight days, and we put it out”, he assures.

For hundreds of Mexican communities, the problem isn’t limited to the flames but begins with a lack of timely and culturally appropriate information and training. A combination of the consequences of climate catastrophe and government omissions has fuelled them.

Reyes, a corn farmer, summed it up: information is lacking. “This happens every year. They should send information so people can be careful”, he says.

As in Copanatoyac, fires in surrounding towns threaten these communities. For example, two fires consumed 45 hectares in an adjacent municipality in 2022. The following year, none occurred; however, four fires ravaged 214 hectares in 2024. This year, three fires burned 120 hectares.

Communities, set aside

Diego Pérez, an academic at the Institute of Ecosystem and Sustainability Research at the public National Autonomous University of Mexico, questions the fire management scheme.

He says that communities are very aware of their environment and know how to conduct agricultural burns and control escapes. “Many people in rural areas are better prepared to deal with these issues. However, Mexican legislation works the other way around, as it is the owner or the community who must handle it. If they are overwhelmed, they must ask the municipality, the state and finally the federation for help”, he tells IPS.

In contrast, Conafor has adopted a reductionist approach, acting as a “fire department”. “What’s happening is that fires are coming back with more force. There’s negative public perception of fire”, he emphasises.

Monitoring and prevention involve improved monitoring through satellite technology, which Conafor already uses, as well as improved fire management practices, and greater community awareness and preparedness programmes, which are still pending.

Reyes remembers the lessons of his father and grandfather. “What is most urgent is to inform, not burn cleared lands, rescue older strategies. We have become very aware that the swiddens should not be burned and if they do, the elderly people have their strategies”, he explains.

He describes that they should clean around the land and not burn from the stream to the hill, but rather from the top of the hill downwards, because the stream cuts it. There shouldn’t be burns when there is a lot of wind, but rather after four in the afternoon.

In the face of a worsening climate catastrophe, affected communities are calling for greater attention from Conafor.

“As responsible institutions, it would be good if they organised training workshops on this problem that communities face year after year. They should also reforest these spaces and provide communities with information on how, where and why to prevent fires. There’s a lot of nature loss”, pleads Aranda.

Researcher Pérez proposes research and support in forest habitat management, fostering knowledge and good practices while recognising regional differences, and recovering traditional knowledge. He also suggests providing communities with the means to manage their ecosystems.

“There’s a lot of work to be done, and it’s not just about fires. It’s about paying the debt that has existed with rural areas. They know that some fires are necessary to remove fuel from the forest. A restoration regime for the fire regime is required — it must be communicated and worked on with communities. The conception of what Conafor can do must be reconsidered”, he recommends.

IPS produced this article with support from the Global Landscapes Forum.

The translation from the original article in Spanish involved the use of AI tools.

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