Puerto Vallarta’s landfill fire has opened a second front for the city. Jalisco’s environment chief now says El Gavilán has been operating without a current state authorization since December 2025, even as smoke monitoring continues from the tire and landfill blaze. The disclosure raises new pressure on City Hall over a site that handles thousands of tons of waste, sits at the center of a recent trash handoff, and may now face tighter scrutiny from state environmental authorities.
Vallarta Landfill Fire Reveals Bigger Permit Problem
Puerto Vallarta’s El Gavilán landfill is operating without a current state authorization, Jalisco’s environment secretary said this week, adding a permit problem to the fallout from the tire-dump and landfill fire that filled parts of the city with smoke.
Paola Bauche Petersen, head of the Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Desarrollo Territorial, said during a public discussion at the University of Guadalajara’s coastal campus that the site’s authorization expired on Dec. 4, 2025. The city must now update and regularize the landfill with Semadet, the state agency that oversees environmental policy and solid-waste management.
That places El Gavilán’s paperwork out of date during one of its most visible crises in years. Bauche Petersen said the fire began in a tire storage area and later reached the landfill. Crews from Puerto Vallarta, Bahía de Banderas, and the state Civil Protection joined the response.
Earlier coverage noted that the fire had already moved from suppression into a state review of possible sanctions or closure. The new permit disclosure sharpens the review by separating two issues that now overlap at the same site. One is the fire. The other is whether Puerto Vallarta had the required authorization while the landfill continued to receive waste.
Permit lapse puts City Hall under new pressure
An operating authorization is not a minor file in a cabinet. NOM-083-SEMARNAT-2003, the national standard for final-disposal sites, covers site selection, design, construction, operation, monitoring, closure, and complementary works for sites that handle urban solid waste and special-management waste.
Semadet has not said, in the available public record, whether an expired authorization alone will trigger a sanction, a corrective order, or another administrative process. The distinction is important because the city still needs a place for daily waste while the fire zone remains under review.
Municipal transparency reports show El Gavilán remained the city’s main final-disposal point last year. In July through September 2025, municipal documents listed 38,138 tons entering El Gavilán. In October and November, the same office listed another 27,438 tons. Those reports describe the municipal landfill office as responsible for overseeing operations and minimizing environmental impact.
The landfill’s operating context also changed recently. Red Ambiental handed El Gavilán back to the municipality on March 31 after operating it from December 2024 to March 2026, while Puerto Vallarta separately faced a trash-debt dispute after the concession ended early.
Smoke monitoring continues after tire fire
State air-quality files from Jalisco’s monitoring system record an atmospheric emergency for Puerto Vallarta beginning May 28 at 7:30 a.m. because of a landfill fire. The same file says the emergency lasted 84 hours and moved to alert status on May 31 at 7:30 p.m. It lists El Colorado, Los Ángeles, El Zancudo, Verde Valle, Colinas del Valle, Ecoterra Paraíso, La Arboleda, Colonia Las Rosas, Ojo de Agua, and nearby areas as affected zones.
During the same discussion, Bauche Petersen used unusually direct language about the tire smoke. “Tires were burning. It is toxic, very toxic,” she said.
Bauche Petersen said the tire dump and the affected forest areas were under control, but the landfill continued to produce visible smoke. “Currently, the alert continues,” she said.
The immediate municipal obligation described by Semadet is to regularize the landfill’s authorization. The disclosure does not answer how the permit lapsed, who missed the renewal, or whether state inspectors had warned the city before the fire. Those questions remain open based on the public record reviewed for this article.
