Quema del Diablo Guatemala 2026: December 7 Burning of the Devil — Where, When and the Rules

Every December 7 at 6:00 PM, Guatemala burns the devil. Families light small devil piñatas in front of their houses; whole neighbourhoods build giant ones and set them on fire in front of dozens to thousands of people. It opens the Christmas season, and it is also, as the authorities remind everyone each year, one of the nights with the most burns, fires and smoke.

Quick summary: Monday, December 7, 2026, 6:00 PM. In Antigua, the event is concentrated in Barrio La Concepción — one large devil, close to 4,000 people, a Testamento del Diablo read minutes before the fire (2025). In Guatemala City, the famous giant devils burn in zona 5. December 8 is not a national holiday — only a local one where the Immaculate Conception is the patron feast. Do not burn plastic, tyres, aerosols, paint or solvents. Emergencies: 119 (CONRED), 122 (Bomberos Voluntarios), 123 (Bomberos Municipales). The 2026 programmes have not been announced (checked October 3, 2026).

Quick facts

Where to see it

Antigua Guatemala — Barrio La Concepción

Antigua no longer burns the way it used to. Víctor Vitelio Contreras, president of the Comité de Festejos of Barrio La Concepción, told Prensa Libre in December 2025 that houses across Antigua used to burn rubbish, mattresses and tyres in front of their doors; the committee’s founder, Virgilio Castillo, had the idea of gathering everyone in one place around a single devil so people would stop polluting. In Contreras’s words, the strategy worked: “ahora ya no hay quemas en distintos puntos de Antigua, sino que toda la gente se concentra aquí para quemar al diablo” — there are no longer burnings at different points of Antigua; everyone gathers here.

What that looked like in 2025:

• 34 consecutive years of burning devils in the barrio, without interruption, not even during the pandemic.
• Close to 4,000 people, organised by a nine-member committee with about 22 neighbours helping.
• A satirical devil chosen each year — in 2025, Los Tres Diablos Sabios (see, hear and keep quiet) — installed in the barrio’s main street that morning.
• The Devil’s Testament read minutes before the burning, a fireworks and light show, and a concert, with the burning scheduled for 6:00 PM.
• In November, the committee arranges permits with the Municipalidad, the Gobernación, the firefighters and the health centre.

The 2026 devil and programme have not been announced (checked October 3, 2026).

Guatemala City — the zona 5 giant devils

• Colonia Abril, zona 5: the Quema del Diablo Gigante, a tradition kept for 42 years as of 2025, according to organiser Luis Estrada. In 2025 set-up (the piñata and the fireworks) began at 4:00 PM and the burning was scheduled for 6:00 PM, followed by a neighbourhood gathering. Estrada recommends watching from 25 to 30 metres away.
• Colonia Arrivillaga, zona 5: a group of about 15 young people aged 19 to 32 who call themselves the Siervos del Diablo build a giant satirical devil every year, meeting almost every night for nearly a month. In 2025 it burned at 6:00 PM, was consumed in minutes, and the Bomberos Voluntarios, on standby, sprayed water and put the fire out.

Elsewhere, the quema happens in front of houses in neighbourhoods across the country. Its scale has been shrinking: in 2021, EFE reported that participation had been declining in recent years because of the authorities’ recommendations not to burn rubbish.

The rules: what is banned, what is only advised

No standing municipal ban on the quema has been published for Guatemala City or Antigua (checked September 24, 2026). What exists is a set of recommendations repeated every year, one national law on fireworks, and — in Antigua — a permitted, concentrated event. One-off interventions do happen: the Barrio La Concepción committee’s president recalled one year (he did not say which) when Human Rights officials arrived at 3:00 PM on December 7 to say that, by order of the mayor, the activity was suspended.

What not to burn (CONRED, 2025): PVC, plastic, duroport, tyres, aerosols, paints and solvents. The Bomberos Municipales Departamentales add plastic containers with flammable residue and batteries. The Ministry of Environment (MARN) runs a yearly campaign warning that burning rubbish, plastics, electronic devices and chemicals releases dioxins and furans, and suggests small piñatas if you burn one at all.

Where to put a bonfire (the government’s Secretaría de Comunicación, 2025): away from power lines, houses, vehicles, trees and anything flammable; no fuels to light it; water, sand or an extinguisher within reach. Guatemala City’s municipality has warned about bonfires and piñatas burned in streets and avenues under electrical cables (EFE, 2021).

Fireworks — this part is law. Decreto Ley 123-85, as reformed by Decreto 73-2007, prohibits importing, making, storing, distributing and selling silbadores and canchinflines, with fines of up to Q50,000 (Prensa Libre, 2023). Prensa Libre also published a list of 10 products that the consumer agency DIACO considers high-risk, saying their sale is prohibited; those extra names do not appear in the text of Decreto Ley 123-85 or of its regulation, Acuerdo Gubernativo 28-2004, which does not mention DIACO (our fireworks law guide read both in full on August 11, 2026). For fireworks you do use, the 2025 advice from CONRED, the government’s Secretaría de Comunicación, the Red Cross and the firefighters: light one product at a time; never inside a house, office or restaurant, or in wooded areas; never inside bottles, cans or closed containers; never pointed at people, animals, buildings or vehicles; never carried in your pockets; no hand sanitiser gel on your hands when handling gunpowder (wash with soap and water); check the expiry date; and children only under adult supervision.

Smoke and your health

In a note on the quema (2015), CONRED, citing INSIVUMEH’s air-quality laboratory, warned that the smoke of December 7 carries carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide, which cause respiratory problems, and asked for special care with children, pregnant women, older people and people with respiratory or heart disease. What the city-level readings look like, and where INSIVUMEH publishes its measured data, is on our air quality page.

Why December 7, and why 6:00 PM

Historians tell the story in two overlapping ways:

• The Rosary and the luminarias. History teacher Juan Alberto Sandoval told Prensa Libre that in colonial Santiago de Guatemala a paper monster was burned at 6:00 PM on October 7, the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, as a victory of good over evil. The custom stopped after the liberal Constitution of 1879 took popular religion off the streets, returned in a disorderly way after a Church-State reconciliation around 1892, and merged with the December luminarias — the lights the Spanish Crown ordered on public buildings every December 7 for the Immaculate Conception, patroness of Spain and its Indies since 1680.
• Lighting the procession. AGN, cited by La Hora, traces the bonfires to the 16th century: on the night of December 7 people lit fires to guide the procession of the Virgen de Concepción, for lack of street lighting; after the 1871 Liberal Reform the burning became more popular, especially in the barrios of the historic centre, Parroquia Vieja and Gerona.

On the hour, Sandoval (in Prensa Libre) and Radio María (as cited by La Hora) give the same explanation: in the Church’s liturgical tradition a feast day began at sunset of the day before, so the feast of December 8 began on the evening of December 7; Sandoval puts it at 6:00 PM, when the angelus was prayed.

The Christmas calendar that follows

The full list, with what closes, is on our Guatemala holidays page.

For the diaspora

• Calling home for the quema: Guatemala does not use daylight saving time, and in December the US is on standard time, so 6:00 PM in Guatemala is 6:00 PM Central, 7:00 PM Eastern and 4:00 PM Pacific.
• Burning a devil abroad: check your city’s open-burning rules before lighting anything; US cities regulate backyard fires locally.
• Sending money for the season: compare today’s rates on our live remittance comparison.

Related guides

• Guatemala events calendar — every major recurring event with dates
• Día de los Santos — November 1: cemeteries, fiambre and the giant kites
• Virgen de Guadalupe in Guatemala — December 12
• Las Posadas — December 16-24
• Guatemala weather in December and January — the month-by-month guide
• Christmas in Guatemala — Nochebuena, food and the fireworks rules
• Guatemala holidays — which days are paid holidays and what closes
• Air quality in Guatemala — city readings and INSIVUMEH’s measured data
• Antigua Guatemala — the town guide