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Valledupar fire, 23 March 2016 Valledupar

Out · last detection 1 Apr 2016, 18:31 UTC

The fire started on 23 March 2016 in Valledupar, Colombia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,264 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 5th largest in Cesar since 2016 (of 60 with a page). Number 18 in Colombia in 2016, of 160.

Burnt area
5,264ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
23 Mar 2016 – 1 Apr 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
23 Mar
2016
Heat detections
314
in a single hotspot: 57 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Apr 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Mar1 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

2324252627282930311

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
47km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 58.3 mm on 2 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. Valledupar where it started
    5,295 ha reached on 16 Mar
    1.3 %

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)
16 Mar 36.0 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
17 Mar 34.6 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
18 Mar 35.2 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
19 Mar 36.6 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
20 Mar 35.1 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm High 30
21 Mar 35.9 °C 38 % 27 km/h 0.5 mm High 29
22 Mar 34.1 °C 35 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 Mar 36.2 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Mar 36.5 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
25 Mar 36.8 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Mar 38.0 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Mar 37.0 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Mar 35.2 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Mar 35.4 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.6 mm High 29
30 Mar 35.5 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
31 Mar 35.8 °C 33 % 30 km/h 4.3 mm Low 11
1 Apr 34.6 °C 36 % 27 km/h 10.6 mm Very low 4
2 Apr after 33.7 °C 47 % 36 km/h 58.3 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Mar 2016
After · 8 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 · 314Every 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 23 March 2016 and 1 April 2016: 10 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 5,264 hectares (52.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Valledupar (5,295 ha, 1.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.0 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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.