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CO · 2022 yearbook

Wildfires in Colombia in 2022

160 fires larger than 1,500 hectares in Colombia in 2022, with 498,232 hectares burned according to their perimeters. Here is the whole year: what the official record says, when and where it burned and what the weather was like.

Only fires of 1,500 ha or more get an entry: smaller ones are not in the lists or the entry totals, but they are in the GWIS yearly series.

The year in a few sentences

  1. According to Copernicus GWIS, 2,856,933 hectares burned in Colombia in 2022: 1.4 times the average of the other years from 2012 to 2024 (2,099,151 ha). Only 2020 and 2016 burned more.

    Copernicus GWIS · See the data

  2. The worst week was 22 January to 28 January: 431,818 hectares burned in seven days, 15% of the year according to Copernicus GWIS.

    Copernicus GWIS · See the data

  3. The largest fire was the La Macarena fire, which started on 22 January 2022 and burned 20,776 hectares: 4% of the area of the year's 160 fires with a page.

    WorldFires · See the data · Open the fire page

Official burned area
2.9 M ha
Copernicus GWIS · ×1.4 the average
Fires with a page
160
498,232 ha within their perimeters
Largest fire
21k ha
La Macarena · 22 Jan
Highest FWI
—
Not yet calculated with the current method

Map of the year

Copernicus GWIS
One circle per fire, sized by its area. Tap one to open its page.

Month by month

Hectares within the perimeters by the month the fire started. Tap a month to see it on the map.

Week by week, against other years

Copernicus GWIS

Cumulative burned area in 2022 over the lowest and highest of each week in the record since 2012, and its average. The bars below show what burned each week. Tap the chart to see a week. The average and the band are the Copernicus GWIS climatology for 2012–2025, which includes 2022 itself.

0 1.1 M 2.3 M 3.4 M Worst week · 432k ha Jan Mar May Jul Sep Nov
2022 average 2012–2025 lowest and highest Hectares each week

Every year since 2012

Copernicus GWIS

Hectares burned per year in the official record. Tap a year to open its yearbook.

2022: 2,856,933 ha Average of the other years: 2,099,151 ha

Cite this

Markdown version

Copy the sentences with their source and link. WorldFires data are CC BY 4.0: credit WorldFires and the original source.

- According to Copernicus GWIS, 2,856,933 hectares burned in Colombia in 2022: 1.4 times the average of the other years from 2012 to 2024 (2,099,151 ha). Only 2020 and 2016 burned more.
- The worst week was 22 January to 28 January: 431,818 hectares burned in seven days, 15% of the year according to Copernicus GWIS.
- The largest fire was the La Macarena fire, which started on 22 January 2022 and burned 20,776 hectares: 4% of the area of the year's 160 fires with a page.

WorldFires, “Wildfires in Colombia in 2022”, https://worldfires.org/en/country/colombia/2022 (accessed 5 November 2026). Sources: Copernicus GWIS, WorldFires.

Fires of 2022, largest first · 160

Burned area in 2022 (Copernicus Land, Sentinel-3)

According to Copernicus Land, 4,393,512 ha burned in 2022: rank 2 of 7 complete years (1 = the most burned). The average of those years is 3,715,216 ha.

The area the Sentinel-3 satellite sees burned each month, separate from the fire pages. It is the same source and the same method every year, so years can be compared with each other. It counts everything that burns, including crop and pasture burning, which is why it does not match the fire pages or the official statistics.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec

Where most burned in 2022

  1. Vichada 2,199,988 ha
  2. Meta 1,023,283 ha
  3. Casanare 433,066 ha
  4. Arauca 322,784 ha
  5. Caquetá 186,428 ha
  6. Guaviare 123,699 ha
  7. Cesar 24,502 ha
  8. Tolima 20,566 ha
  9. La Guajira 17,311 ha
  10. Magdalena 7,001 ha

The whole series since 2018

Source: Copernicus Land Monitoring Service, “Burnt Area 2018-present (raster 300 m), global, monthly – version 4”, monthly Sentinel-3 product, DOI 10.2909/8fa58061-28ab-49bb-9b77-c26b50733e34. Generated using European Union’s Copernicus Land Monitoring Service information; worldfires.org adds up, by country and region, the true area of the 300 m cells where a burn was detected. Latest month published: May 2026. Product page · Methodology

Sources and limits

Fire-page areas are satellite-measured perimeters and may differ from official statistics. The yearly and weekly record is the Copernicus GWIS estimate. The FWI is our own calculation from ERA5 at each fire's location: it is not an official danger warning.

Official information for Colombia is published by: UNGRD · Gestión del Riesgo de Desastres · IDEAM

Perimeters: Copernicus EFFIS and GWIS (and MTBS, NIFC or NBAC in North America). Hotspots: NASA FIRMS (VIIRS). Weather: Copernicus ERA5 via Open-Meteo. How it is calculated