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Valledupar fire, 14 February 2016 Valledupar

Out · last detection 28 Feb 2016, 18:50 UTC

The fire started on 14 February 2016 in Valledupar, Colombia, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,524 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the largest fire in Cesar since 2016 (of 60 with a page). Number 8 in Colombia in 2016, of 160.

Burnt area
9,524ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
14 Feb 2016 – 28 Feb 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
14 Feb
2016
Heat detections
392
in a single hotspot: 56 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Feb 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Feb28 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

141516171819202122232425262728

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
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 20 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 7 Mar.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Valledupar where it started
    9,582 ha reached on 14 Feb
    2.3 %

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)
14 Feb 34.2 °C 39 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Feb 35.7 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
16 Feb 38.5 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.2 mm High 34
17 Feb 36.2 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.4 mm High 32
18 Feb 35.8 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Feb 34.2 °C 35 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Feb 34.1 °C 36 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Feb 34.0 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.4 mm High 31
22 Feb 35.2 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.3 mm High 31
23 Feb 36.6 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
24 Feb 36.9 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.3 mm High 30
25 Feb 34.2 °C 44 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
26 Feb 33.4 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
27 Feb 37.1 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 Feb 34.7 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Feb after 35.3 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
1 Mar after 34.7 °C 39 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Mar after 36.5 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
3 Mar after 35.0 °C 39 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
4 Mar after 35.6 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
5 Mar after 35.2 °C 38 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
6 Mar after 34.8 °C 40 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
7 Mar after 33.5 °C 48 % 21 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Feb 2016
After · 6 Mar 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 · 392Every 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 Valledupar fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 February 2016 and 28 February 2016: 15 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 9,524 hectares (95.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Valledupar (9,582 ha, 2.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.5 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 48 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.