Guatemala's Volcán de Fuego ejects lava and ash, prompting evacuations near San Juan Alotenango

Volcanic activity on the slopes

Coordinadora Nacional para la Reducción de Desastres (Conred), Guatemala's national disaster coordination agency, moved into an active response posture, dispatching teams to at-risk villages. Claudinne Ogaldes, Conred's executive secretary, said the agency is "visiting house by house to encourage families to evacuate" because Guatemala's disaster law does not give officials the power to compel residents to leave their homes.

"Unfortunately, the Conred law is not coercive. It's not like in other countries where they say, 'We must evacuate' and everyone evacuates. Here, it's a recommendation, and that's why we're visiting house by house to encourage families to evacuate," Ogaldes said.

Why Conred cannot compel evacuations

Local authorities set up temporary shelters in schools and municipal buildings farther from the volcano's path, providing food, water and mattresses to displaced families. Volunteers helped transport elderly residents and children away from the highest-risk zones.

Communities near San Juan Alotenango have been placed on heightened alert as pyroclastic flows — fast-moving currents of hot gas and volcanic matter — can sweep down the volcano's drainages with little warning. Residents were advised to avoid riverbeds that channel material from the slopes.

Photographs from the area, credited to AP photographer Moises Castillo, showed streets coated in fine grey ash and residents covering their faces with masks and cloths as they carried belongings away from the danger zone.

Risk of pyroclastic flows and ashfall

Conred urged residents to follow official channels for updates and to cooperate with the door-to-door teams. The agency warned that small additional eruptions, lahars and ashfall could continue intermittently in the coming hours and days.

Volcán de Fuego, which rises roughly 3,763 meters above sea level about 16 kilometers southwest of the colonial city of Antigua Guatemala, has erupted repeatedly in recorded history. Its 2018 eruption killed hundreds of people and left thousands homeless, shaping the country's current disaster preparedness policies.

The current activity level was being monitored by vulcanologists from the national institute, who were tracking seismic activity, gas emissions and visual changes at the crater. Officials said the door-to-door outreach would continue as long as the volcanic hazard persisted.

A volcano with a destructive history

For now, the priority, Ogaldes said, is keeping families safe through direct contact rather than legal compulsion, with Conred teams scheduled to revisit neighborhoods throughout the day and night.