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CO · 2023 yearbook

Wildfires in Colombia in 2023

57 fires larger than 1,500 hectares in Colombia in 2023, with 149,733 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, 1,618,859 hectares burned in Colombia in 2023: 74% of the average of the other years from 2012 to 2024 (2,202,324 ha).

    Copernicus GWIS · See the data

  2. The worst week was 29 January to 4 February: 234,996 hectares burned in seven days, 15% of the year according to Copernicus GWIS.

    Copernicus GWIS · See the data

  3. The largest fire was the Puerto Gaitán fire, which started on 20 February 2023 and burned 17,013 hectares: 11% of the area of the year's 57 fires with a page.

    WorldFires · See the data · Open the fire page

  4. The day of highest danger at a fire this year was 1 February 2023: a Fire Weather Index of 46 (very high on the EFFIS scale) at the Puerto Gaitán fire, calculated by WorldFires from ERA5.

    WorldFires · ERA5 · See the data · Open the fire page

Official burned area
1.6 M ha
Copernicus GWIS · ×0.7 the average
Fires with a page
57
149,733 ha within their perimeters
Largest fire
17k ha
Puerto Gaitán · 20 Feb
Highest FWI
46 Very high
1 Feb · Puerto Gaitán

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 2023 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 2023 itself.

0 1.1 M 2.3 M 3.4 M Worst week · 235k ha Jan Mar May Jul Sep Nov
2023 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.

2023: 1,618,859 ha Average of the other years: 2,202,324 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, 1,618,859 hectares burned in Colombia in 2023: 74% of the average of the other years from 2012 to 2024 (2,202,324 ha).
- The worst week was 29 January to 4 February: 234,996 hectares burned in seven days, 15% of the year according to Copernicus GWIS.
- The largest fire was the Puerto Gaitán fire, which started on 20 February 2023 and burned 17,013 hectares: 11% of the area of the year's 57 fires with a page.
- The day of highest danger at a fire this year was 1 February 2023: a Fire Weather Index of 46 (very high on the EFFIS scale) at the Puerto Gaitán fire, calculated by WorldFires from ERA5.

WorldFires, “Wildfires in Colombia in 2023”, https://worldfires.org/en/country/colombia/2023 (accessed 9 November 2026). Sources: Copernicus GWIS, WorldFires, WorldFires · ERA5.

Fires of 2023, largest first · 57

Burned area in 2023 (Copernicus Land, Sentinel-3)

According to Copernicus Land, 3,354,103 ha burned in 2023: rank 4 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 2023

  1. Vichada 1,692,361 ha
  2. Meta 779,682 ha
  3. Casanare 410,510 ha
  4. Arauca 266,788 ha
  5. Cesar 41,205 ha
  6. Guaviare 26,714 ha
  7. Tolima 22,833 ha
  8. Caquetá 19,926 ha
  9. La Guajira 11,673 ha
  10. Córdoba 11,043 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