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Arauca fire, 3 March 2016 Arauca, Cravo Norte

Out · last detection 6 Mar 2016, 18:18 UTC

The fire started on 3 March 2016 in Arauca, Colombia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,687 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 11th largest in Arauca since 2016 (of 107 with a page). Number 14 in Colombia in 2016, of 160.

Burnt area
5,687ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
3 Mar 2016 – 6 Mar 2016
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
3 Mar
2016
Heat detections
129
in a single hotspot: 57 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
961MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Mar 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Mar6 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

3456

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

39°high
43km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.1 mm on 16 Mar.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Arauca where it started
    5,145 ha reached on 3 Mar
    0.9 %
  2. Cravo Norte
    128 ha reached on 4 Mar
    0.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
2 Mar 35.7 °C 40 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
3 Mar 36.6 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Mar 37.0 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Mar 38.6 °C 30 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
6 Mar 38.1 °C 30 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Mar after 37.1 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Mar after 37.1 °C 34 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Mar after 36.2 °C 35 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 Mar after 37.1 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
11 Mar after 36.1 °C 39 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Mar after 36.9 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Mar after 36.8 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Mar after 36.0 °C 41 % 20 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
15 Mar after 33.1 °C 54 % 20 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 19
16 Mar after 34.9 °C 57 % 28 km/h 3.1 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 25 Feb 2016
After · 13 Mar 2016

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 129Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Colombia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Arauca fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 March 2016 and 6 March 2016: 4 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,687 hectares (56.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Arauca (5,145 ha, 0.9 %); Cravo Norte (128 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Colombia (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Emergency number: 123 · 119

Satellite cross-check

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 123 · 119.

Where this data comes from

The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.