Arauca fire, March 2024 Arauca
The fire started on 1 March 2024 in Arauca, Colombia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,217 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 34th largest in Arauca since 2016 (of 107 with a page). Number 19 in Colombia in 2024, of 73.
- Burnt area
- 3,217ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 1 Mar 2024 – 7 Mar 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 1 Mar
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 80
- in a single hotspot: 62 MW
- Danger at start
- 25
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 704MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.3 mm on 8 Mar.
This area had burned before
86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,517 ha in 2016, 290 ha in 2018, 2,004 ha in 2019, 480 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,759 ha that had burned before.
- 1,327 ha Arauca fire, February 2019 2,563 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 786 ha Arauca fire, March 2016 5,687 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 675 ha Arauca fire, February 2019 2,345 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 618 ha Arauca fire, March 2016 2,357 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 278 ha Arauca fire, April 2018 2,263 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 114 ha Rómulo Gallegos fire, January 2016 1,670 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 12 ha Arauca fire, January 2018 2,271 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2 ha Rómulo Gallegos fire, February 2019 1,814 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Arauca where it started3,002 ha reached on 28 Feb0.5 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 Feb | 35.5 °C | 37 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 29 Feb | 35.6 °C | 35 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 1 Mar | 34.8 °C | 38 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 2 Mar | 34.3 °C | 39 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 3 Mar | 34.8 °C | 36 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 4 Mar | 35.6 °C | 36 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 5 Mar | 36.4 °C | 38 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 6 Mar | 35.7 °C | 44 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 7 Mar | 36.3 °C | 43 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 8 Mar after | 36.2 °C | 45 % | 18 km/h | 2.3 mm | Low 9 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 6 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 57 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 45: 3.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 80Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 10,759 haCravo Norte24 February 2026 · 9 days · 4 km away
- 23,130 haCravo Norte19 March 2026 · 10 days · 24 km away
- 36,349 haRómulo Gallegos28 February 2026 · 15 days · 28 km away
- 12,624 haCravo NorteFebruary 2025 · 6 days · 29 km away
- 9,578 haCravo Norte16 March 2020 · 15 days · 29 km away
- 13,631 haCravo Norte23 February 2016 · 4 days · 32 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Arauca fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 March 2024 and 7 March 2024: 7 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 3,217 hectares (32.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Arauca (3,002 ha, 0.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 45 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
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.