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CO · 2026 yearbook

Wildfires in Colombia in 2026

159 fires larger than 1,500 hectares in Colombia in 2026, with 426,555 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.

Year in progress: the figures change every day until the year closes and are not compared with complete years.

Series not comparable from October 2025 onwards: GWIS changed its near-real-time perimeters.

The year in a few sentences

  1. Up to 4 November, Copernicus GWIS counts 1,037,215 hectares burned in Colombia in 2026: 54% of the average for the same weeks from 2012 to 2025 (1,908,714 ha). GWIS estimates for the current year are provisional and may change.

    Copernicus GWIS · See the data

  2. The worst week so far was 19 March to 25 March: 174,173 hectares burned in seven days, 17% of the year to date according to Copernicus GWIS.

    Copernicus GWIS · See the data

  3. The largest fire was the Cravo Norte fire, which started on 19 March 2026 and burned 23,130 hectares: 5% of the area of the year's 159 fires with a page.

    WorldFires · See the data · Open the fire page

  4. The day of highest danger at a fire this year was 24 March 2026: a Fire Weather Index of 47 (very high on the EFFIS scale) at the Puerto Carreño fire, calculated by WorldFires from ERA5.

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

Official burned area
1.0 M ha
Copernicus GWIS · up to 4 Nov
Fires with a page
159
426,555 ha within their perimeters
Largest fire
23k ha
Cravo Norte · 19 Mar
Highest FWI
47 Very high
24 Mar · Puerto Carreño

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 2026 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.

0 1.1 M 2.3 M 3.4 M Worst week · 174k ha Jan Mar May Jul Sep Nov
2026 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.

2026: 1,039,465 ha Average of the other years: 2,157,442 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.

- Up to 4 November, Copernicus GWIS counts 1,037,215 hectares burned in Colombia in 2026: 54% of the average for the same weeks from 2012 to 2025 (1,908,714 ha). GWIS estimates for the current year are provisional and may change.
- The worst week so far was 19 March to 25 March: 174,173 hectares burned in seven days, 17% of the year to date according to Copernicus GWIS.
- The largest fire was the Cravo Norte fire, which started on 19 March 2026 and burned 23,130 hectares: 5% of the area of the year's 159 fires with a page.
- The day of highest danger at a fire this year was 24 March 2026: a Fire Weather Index of 47 (very high on the EFFIS scale) at the Puerto Carreño fire, calculated by WorldFires from ERA5.

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

Fires of 2026, largest first · 159

Burned area in 2026 (Copernicus Land, Sentinel-3)

According to Copernicus Land, 1,725,839 ha burned in 2026 (Jan–May). The year is not complete, so it is not compared with the others.

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
pending from Copernicus

Where most burned in 2026

  1. Vichada 889,612 ha
  2. Casanare 309,296 ha
  3. Meta 297,316 ha
  4. Arauca 170,562 ha
  5. Caquetá 16,068 ha
  6. Guaviare 14,184 ha
  7. Córdoba 7,638 ha
  8. Tolima 5,459 ha
  9. Cesar 3,404 ha
  10. La Guajira 1,905 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