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Becerrill fire, February 2021 Becerrill

Out · last detection 5 Mar 2021, 17:58 UTC

The fire started on 25 February 2021 in Becerrill, Colombia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,007 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 16th largest in Cesar since 2016 (of 60 with a page). Number 11 in Colombia in 2021, of 42.

Burnt area
3,007ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
25 Feb 2021 – 5 Mar 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
25 Feb
2021
Heat detections
127
in a single hotspot: 60 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Mar 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Feb5 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

2526272812345

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
46km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 13 Mar.

This area had burned before

31% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 929 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Becerrill where it started
    3,026 ha reached on 25 Feb
    2.4 %

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)
25 Feb 34.7 °C 34 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
26 Feb 33.6 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
27 Feb 34.6 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.3 mm High 30
28 Feb 34.5 °C 21 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
1 Mar 36.1 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Mar 34.8 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 Mar 35.5 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Mar 36.1 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
5 Mar 35.4 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Mar after 33.9 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
7 Mar after 34.9 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
8 Mar after 34.4 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
9 Mar after 34.4 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
10 Mar after 33.6 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Mar after 33.6 °C 37 % 23 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
12 Mar after 32.0 °C 35 % 24 km/h 0.4 mm High 29
13 Mar after 32.5 °C 34 % 27 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 19

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Feb 2021
After · 12 Mar 2021

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 · 127Every 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 Becerrill fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 February 2021 and 5 March 2021: 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 3,007 hectares (30.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Becerrill (3,026 ha, 2.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.1 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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.