Skip to content
worldfires
CO · Colombia · →

Turbo fire, 25 March 2016 Turbo

Out · last detection 6 Apr 2016, 18:37 UTC

The fire started on 25 March 2016 in Turbo, Colombia, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,665 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

Number 63 in Colombia in 2016, of 160.

Burnt area
2,665ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
25 Mar 2016 – 6 Apr 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
25 Mar
2016
Heat detections
152
in a single hotspot: 214 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Apr 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Mar6 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

25262829303113456

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
48km/h · peak gust
36%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.0 mm on 16 Apr.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Turbo where it started
    2,681 ha reached on 25 Mar
    0.9 %

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 Mar 36.8 °C 41 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
26 Mar 37.4 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
27 Mar 37.5 °C 41 % 28 km/h 0.7 mm High 21
28 Mar 36.8 °C 40 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
29 Mar 37.3 °C 38 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
30 Mar 34.9 °C 46 % 33 km/h 0.3 mm High 26
31 Mar 37.0 °C 40 % 30 km/h 0.6 mm High 26
1 Apr 36.3 °C 36 % 22 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
2 Apr 35.9 °C 42 % 36 km/h 1.5 mm High 22
3 Apr 36.3 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
4 Apr 36.2 °C 44 % 30 km/h 0.4 mm High 27
5 Apr 37.2 °C 42 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
6 Apr 36.1 °C 44 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Apr after 34.2 °C 53 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
8 Apr after 35.6 °C 50 % 43 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
9 Apr after 36.0 °C 46 % 44 km/h 1.0 mm High 24
10 Apr after 34.0 °C 56 % 44 km/h 7.6 mm Low 6
11 Apr after 34.4 °C 55 % 37 km/h 2.6 mm Low 6
12 Apr after 31.9 °C 57 % 37 km/h 2.0 mm Low 6
13 Apr after 34.2 °C 44 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
14 Apr after 34.9 °C 48 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
15 Apr after 35.2 °C 52 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 20
16 Apr after 36.8 °C 46 % 33 km/h 3.0 mm Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Mar 2016
After · 13 Apr 2016

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 · 152Every 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 Turbo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 March 2016 and 6 April 2016: 13 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 2,665 hectares (26.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Turbo (2,681 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 36 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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.