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Vertientes fire, March 2025 Vertientes

Out · last detection 19 Mar 2025, 18:46 UTC

The fire started on 18 March 2025 in Vertientes, Cuba, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,238 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 38th largest in Camagüey since 2016 (of 63 with a page). Number 16 in Cuba in 2025, of 27.

Burnt area
1,238ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
2days
18 Mar 2025 – 19 Mar 2025
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
18 Mar
2025
Heat detections
29
in a single hotspot: 114 MW
Danger at start
22
High · FWI index
Energy released
471MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Mar 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Mar19 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

1819

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
45km/h · peak gust
32%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 29 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. Vertientes where it started
    1,244 ha reached on 18 Mar
    0.6 %

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)
18 Mar 29.4 °C 35 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
19 Mar 29.7 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
20 Mar after 29.3 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
21 Mar after 30.4 °C 38 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
22 Mar after 31.0 °C 37 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
23 Mar after 32.6 °C 39 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
24 Mar after 32.6 °C 48 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm High 24
25 Mar after 31.7 °C 44 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 21
26 Mar after 32.7 °C 41 % 37 km/h 0.4 mm High 27
27 Mar after 32.5 °C 37 % 47 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
28 Mar after 31.0 °C 53 % 53 km/h 0.7 mm High 24
29 Mar after 32.4 °C 47 % 41 km/h 1.4 mm Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Mar 2025
After · 26 Mar 2025

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 · Copernicus

On 20 March 2025 the air beside the fire reached 31 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak31 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1034 µg/m³
Optical depth0.47
16171819202122232425
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 29Every 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 Cuba ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Vertientes fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 March 2025 and 19 March 2025: 2 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 1,238 hectares (12.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Vertientes (1,244 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.7 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Cuba (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: 105

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 105.

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 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). 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.