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Arauca fire, 9 March 2019 Arauca

Out · last detection 19 Mar 2019, 05:57 UTC

The fire started on 9 March 2019 in Arauca, Colombia, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,280 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 58th largest in Arauca since 2016 (of 107 with a page). Number 68 in Colombia in 2019, of 131.

Burnt area
2,280ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
9 Mar 2019 – 19 Mar 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
9 Mar
2019
Heat detections
77
in a single hotspot: 38 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
783MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Mar 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Mar19 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

910111314161819

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
42km/h · peak gust
33%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 16.3 mm on 29 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
    2,295 ha reached on 9 Mar
    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)
9 Mar 34.0 °C 39 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
10 Mar 31.6 °C 52 % 30 km/h 4.2 mm Low 5
11 Mar 33.5 °C 44 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
12 Mar 32.2 °C 45 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
13 Mar 33.9 °C 42 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
14 Mar 34.3 °C 39 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
15 Mar 34.1 °C 44 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
16 Mar 36.3 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
17 Mar 33.2 °C 47 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
18 Mar 35.4 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
19 Mar 35.3 °C 37 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
20 Mar after 36.9 °C 32 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
21 Mar after 35.5 °C 36 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
22 Mar after 35.4 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
23 Mar after 36.3 °C 33 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
24 Mar after 36.9 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Mar after 37.0 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Mar after 37.2 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
27 Mar after 36.9 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Mar after 36.1 °C 30 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
29 Mar after 33.4 °C 50 % 30 km/h 16.3 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Mar 2019
After · 26 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 · 77Every 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 9 March 2019 and 19 March 2019: 11 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 2,280 hectares (22.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Arauca (2,295 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, class 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.