Arauca fire, March 2025 Arauca
The fire started on 8 March 2025 in Arauca, Colombia, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,653 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 41th largest in Arauca since 2016 (of 107 with a page). Number 20 in Colombia in 2025, of 45.
- Burnt area
- 2,653ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 3days
- 8 Mar 2025 – 10 Mar 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 8 Mar
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 84
- in a single hotspot: 34 MW
- Danger at start
- 28
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 755MW
- 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 36 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.9 mm on 15 Mar.
This area had burned before
78% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,176 ha in 2018, 67 ha in 2019, 1,193 ha in 2020, 1,347 ha in 2022, 361 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,059 ha that had burned before.
- 1,347 ha Arauca fire, January 2022 1,594 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,193 ha Arauca fire, April 2020 1,810 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,176 ha Arauca fire, March 2018 2,438 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 361 ha Arauca fire, January 2024 2,046 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 67 ha Arauca fire, February 2019 1,548 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Arauca where it started2,669 ha reached on 8 Mar0.5 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 Mar | 34.8 °C | 38 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 9 Mar | 34.3 °C | 41 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 10 Mar | 34.5 °C | 40 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 11 Mar after | 33.9 °C | 45 % | 27 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 24 |
| 12 Mar after | 33.3 °C | 53 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 13 Mar after | 34.5 °C | 50 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 21 |
| 14 Mar after | 32.8 °C | 53 % | 31 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 23 |
| 15 Mar after | 30.7 °C | 65 % | 27 km/h | 11.9 mm | Very low 1 |
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 11 March 2025 the air beside the fire reached 62 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 46: 3.1 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 · 84Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Arauca fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 March 2025 and 10 March 2025: 3 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 2,653 hectares (26.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Arauca (2,669 ha, 0.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 38 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, 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.