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Orocué fire, January 2019 Orocué

Out · last detection 16 Jan 2019, 05:20 UTC

The fire started on 11 January 2019 in Orocué, Colombia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,952 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 17th largest in Casanare since 2016 (of 65 with a page). Number 38 in Colombia in 2019, of 131.

The power measured by the satellite is low (26.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
2,952ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
11 Jan 2019 – 16 Jan 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
11 Jan
2019
Heat detections
65
in a single hotspot: 26 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
465MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Jan 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Jan16 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

111213141516

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
50km/h · peak gust
34%lowest humidity

It had gone 42 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 25 Jan.

This area had burned before

11% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 335 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Orocué where it started
    2,970 ha reached on 11 Jan
    0.6 %

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)
11 Jan 33.5 °C 40 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
12 Jan 33.0 °C 37 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
13 Jan 34.3 °C 38 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
14 Jan 33.4 °C 38 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Jan 33.8 °C 35 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
16 Jan 34.5 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
17 Jan after 34.9 °C 39 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
18 Jan after 32.6 °C 49 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
19 Jan after 33.3 °C 43 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
20 Jan after 33.1 °C 41 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
21 Jan after 34.4 °C 37 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
22 Jan after 34.2 °C 35 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Jan after 33.3 °C 37 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Jan after 34.1 °C 37 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
25 Jan after 34.0 °C 41 % 36 km/h 1.0 mm High 23

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Jan 2019
After · 23 Jan 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 · 65Every 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 Orocué fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 January 2019 and 16 January 2019: 6 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 2,952 hectares (29.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Orocué (2,970 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 50 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
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.