Riohacha fire, 2 April 2019 Riohacha, Barrancas
The fire started on 2 April 2019 in Riohacha, Colombia, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,509 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 4th largest in La Guajira since 2016 (of 13 with a page). Number 54 in Colombia in 2019, of 131.
- Burnt area
- 2,509ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 11days
- 2 Apr 2019 – 12 Apr 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 2 Apr
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 82
- in a single hotspot: 42 MW
- Danger at start
- 2
- Very low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 636MW
- 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 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 14 Apr.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
Riohacha where it started2,522 ha reached on 2 Apr0.8 %
-
1 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 2,400 ha was recorded in Riohacha on 3 April 2019 (the satellite measured 2,509 ha). The record has no coordinates, so it was matched by municipality and date.
- Riohacha 3 April 2019 2,400 ha
UNGRD (Unidad Nacional para la Gestión del Riesgo de Desastres), emergencias 2019-2022 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Apr | 29.0 °C | 40 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 2 |
| 3 Apr | 29.2 °C | 43 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 4 Apr | 29.3 °C | 46 % | 40 km/h | 1.4 mm | Very low 5 |
| 5 Apr | 30.2 °C | 41 % | 34 km/h | 1.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 6 Apr | 31.0 °C | 41 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 7 Apr | 31.8 °C | 42 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 11 |
| 8 Apr | 29.6 °C | 42 % | 28 km/h | 0.9 mm | Low 8 |
| 9 Apr | 30.0 °C | 47 % | 23 km/h | 0.3 mm | Low 9 |
| 10 Apr | 30.3 °C | 50 % | 33 km/h | 2.3 mm | Very low 3 |
| 11 Apr | 29.8 °C | 42 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 12 Apr | 30.4 °C | 40 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 13 Apr after | 31.0 °C | 43 % | 36 km/h | 0.6 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 14 Apr after | 30.0 °C | 54 % | 32 km/h | 1.7 mm | Very low 5 |
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.
Detections table · 82Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,662 haRiohacha9 March 2020 · 15 days · 18 km away
- 1,695 haRiohacha16 March 2020 · 9 days · 21 km away
- 2,509 haRiohacha5 April 2019 · 9 days · 24 km away
- 1,782 haRiohacha21 March 2020 · 10 days · 28 km away
- 2,689 haBarrancasMarch 2020 · 17 days · 31 km away
- 1,812 haBarrancasFebruary 2022 · 8 days · 32 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Riohacha fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 April 2019 and 12 April 2019: 11 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 2,509 hectares (25.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Riohacha (2,522 ha, 0.8 %); Barrancas (1 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 31.8 °C, humidity dropped to 40 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 12, class Moderate.
- 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.