Palermo fire, September 2024 Palermo, Campoalegre
The fire started on 10 September 2024 in Palermo, Colombia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,699 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
Number 6 in Colombia in 2024, of 73.
The power measured by the satellite is low (22.8 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
- 5,699ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 10 Sept 2024 – 16 Sept 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 10 Sept
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 177
- in a single hotspot: 23 MW
- Danger at start
- 27
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 935MW
- 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 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 22 Sept.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
Palermo where it started5,731 ha reached on 10 Sept6.4 %
-
5 ha0.0 %
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.
Official record
According to UNGRD, a fire of 13,290 ha was recorded in Palermo on 9 September 2024 (the satellite measured 5,699 ha). The record has no coordinates, so it was matched by municipality and date. The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.
- Palermo 9 September 2024 13,290 ha
UNGRD (Unidad Nacional para la Gestión del Riesgo de Desastres), emergencias 2023-2024 en datos.gov.co (CC BY-SA 4.0). This is the agency’s operational record: its figures may be revised when the year’s statistics are closed.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 Sept | 33.3 °C | 34 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 11 Sept | 34.6 °C | 30 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 12 Sept | 35.0 °C | 30 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 13 Sept | 34.5 °C | 33 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 14 Sept | 34.8 °C | 32 % | 37 km/h | 1.0 mm | High 26 |
| 15 Sept | 36.3 °C | 30 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 16 Sept | 34.4 °C | 36 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 17 Sept after | 33.6 °C | 34 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 18 Sept after | 34.8 °C | 33 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 19 Sept after | 34.8 °C | 32 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 20 Sept after | 32.8 °C | 36 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 21 Sept after | 33.6 °C | 35 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 22 Sept after | 32.9 °C | 37 % | 32 km/h | 1.9 mm | Moderate 16 |
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 13 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 26 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 21: 1.4 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 · 177Every 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 Palermo fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 September 2024 and 16 September 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 5,699 hectares (57.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Palermo (5,731 ha, 6.4 %); Campoalegre (5 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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.