Volcán de Fuego
Interesting facts
- The conquistador Pedro de Alvarado reportedly saw Fuego in eruption as early as 1524 and mentioned it in his letters.
- According to a local legend, priests who tried to baptise the volcano Catarina provoked an eruption that flung their cross to the bishop's palace in Santiago.
- Spanish settlers named it Fuego to tell it apart from its neighbour Agua, the volcano blamed for the torrent of water that wrecked the old capital in 1541.
- Early colonists referred to Fuego and Acatenango together as the volcanoes of Fuego, since the two share a single volcanic massif.
- The historian Domingo Juarros listed damaging colonial-era eruptions in 1581, 1586, 1623, 1705, 1710, 1717, 1732 and 1737.
- During the eruption of August 1717 the image of the Virgen del Rosario was carried through the streets of Santiago for the first time in a century.
- When the French writer Eugenio Dussaussay climbed Fuego in 1881, local porters refused to go beyond a ridge only about 30 cm wide, and the ascent took him sixteen hours.
- Fuego's paroxysms typically drop ash on communities up to 20 km away and send lava flows one to two kilometres down from the summit.
- Ash from the 2018 eruption fell as far as Guatemala City, closing La Aurora International Airport while soldiers cleared the runway.
Why it is worth it
Volcán de Fuego, the Volcano of Fire, is a 3,768-metre stratovolcano in the Guatemalan highlands about 16 km west of Antigua, and it is one of the most persistently active volcanoes in the world. Small explosions of gas and ash burst from the summit every fifteen to twenty minutes, and during stronger phases lava flows run down its bare upper slopes. The Kaqchikel name, Chi Q'aq', means where the fire is. Its symmetrical cone, ribbed with deep ravines, stands side by side with the older Acatenango to the north; together they form the double-peaked massif called La Horqueta, joined by the scarp of La Meseta, the remains of an earlier volcano that collapsed about 8,500 years ago.
Fuego has shaped the history of the region. People in colonial Santiago de los Caballeros, today's Antigua, believed its eruptions caused the earthquakes that repeatedly battered their city; a violent eruption in August 1717 was followed by the San Miguel earthquake, and after the destruction of 1773 the Spanish capital was moved to what is now Guatemala City. Early travellers came for the spectacle: the archaeologist Alfred Maudslay climbed it in January 1892 and wrote of watching dawn light spread across a chain of volcanoes to the Pacific.
The current phase of activity began in 1999, with steady low-level eruptions punctuated by violent paroxysms. The worst came on 3 June 2018, the most powerful eruption since 1974, when pyroclastic flows overran the Las Lajas ravine and buried the community of San Miguel Los Lotes; at least 159 people died and hundreds more were missing. The volcano is therefore watched closely, and its moods are part of daily life for the villages around its foot.
For most visitors, the way to see Fuego is from its neighbour. Climbing Acatenango has become one of Guatemala's most popular adventures: outfitters run overnight treks to base camps with cabins high on its slopes, from where hikers watch the eruptions of Fuego across the saddle after dark.
Getting there
The village of Alotenango lies about 8 km from the volcano, and Antigua Guatemala about 16 km. La Aurora International Airport (GUA) in Guatemala City is about 40 km away.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Volcán de Fuego or Chi Q'aq' is an active stratovolcano in Guatemala, on the borders of Chimaltenango, Escuintla and Sacatepéquez departments.
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