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Arauca fire, 18 February 2019 Arauca

Out · last detection 27 Feb 2019, 18:17 UTC

The fire started on 18 February 2019 in Arauca, Colombia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,261 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 62th largest in Arauca since 2016 (of 107 with a page). Number 69 in Colombia in 2019, of 131.

Burnt area
2,261ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
18 Feb 2019 – 26 Feb 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
18 Feb
2019
Heat detections
70
in a single hotspot: 158 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Average daily power
169MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

27 Feb 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Feb26 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

18 Feb 2019 · 588 MW · 8 19 Feb 2019 · 10 MW · 5 20 Feb 2019 · 570 MW · 23 21 Feb 2019 · 105 MW · 7 22 Feb 2019 · 132 MW · 19 23 Feb 2019 · 85 MW · 5 24 Feb 2019 · 2 MW · 1 26 Feb 2019 · 5 MW · 1 27 Feb 2019 · 22 MW · 1
18 Feb 20 Feb 22 Feb 24 Feb 27 Feb

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
45km/h · peak gust
32%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

25% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 561 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Arauca where it started
    2,275 ha reached on 18 Feb
    0.4 %

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)
18 Feb 33.5 °C 39 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
19 Feb 33.5 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
20 Feb 33.4 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Feb 34.2 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
22 Feb 33.1 °C 43 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Feb 33.5 °C 40 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Feb 33.5 °C 32 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
25 Feb 33.8 °C 35 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Feb 33.9 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
27 Feb after 34.0 °C 34 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Feb after 34.3 °C 39 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Mar after 35.5 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Mar after 35.0 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Mar after 34.3 °C 36 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
4 Mar after 35.0 °C 36 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Mar after 35.5 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Mar after 36.0 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Mar after 35.2 °C 40 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Mar after 35.7 °C 38 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Mar after 34.2 °C 42 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Feb 2019
After · 5 Mar 2019

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 · 70Every 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 18 February 2019 and 26 February 2019: 9 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 2,261 hectares (22.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Arauca (2,275 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.