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Arauca fire, 8 March 2020 Arauca

Out · last detection 9 Mar 2020, 06:22 UTC

The fire started on 8 March 2020 in Arauca, Colombia, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,058 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 69th largest in Arauca since 2016 (of 107 with a page). Number 90 in Colombia in 2020, of 158.

Burnt area
2,058ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
2days
8 Mar 2020 – 9 Mar 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
8 Mar
2020
Heat detections
63
in a single hotspot: 324 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Mar 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Mar9 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

89

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
38km/h · peak gust
31%lowest humidity

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

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
    2,071 ha reached on 8 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)
8 Mar 36.5 °C 31 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Mar 33.1 °C 39 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Mar after 34.9 °C 36 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Mar after 35.5 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Mar after 35.1 °C 38 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Mar after 33.7 °C 42 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
14 Mar after 35.4 °C 38 % 30 km/h 0.6 mm High 26
15 Mar after 35.6 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Mar after 37.0 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Mar after 35.8 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Mar after 35.2 °C 34 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Mar after 35.5 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Mar 2020
After · 16 Mar 2020

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 · 63Every 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 8 March 2020 and 9 March 2020: 2 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 2,058 hectares (20.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Arauca (2,071 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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.