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Vertientes fire, March 2026 Vertientes

Out · last detection 1 Apr 2026, 19:06 UTC

The fire started on 26 March 2026 in Vertientes, Cuba, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,184 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 44th largest in Camagüey since 2016 (of 63 with a page). Number 27 in Cuba in 2026, of 42.

Burnt area
1,184ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
26 Mar 2026 – 1 Apr 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
26 Mar
2026
Heat detections
19
in a single hotspot: 112 MW
Danger at start
6
Low · FWI index
Energy released
376MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Apr 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Mar1 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

282930311

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
51km/h · peak gust
47%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.6 mm on 2 Apr.

This area had burned before

25% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 296 ha in 2025.

What happened to each town

  1. Vertientes where it started
    1,190 ha reached on 23 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)
26 Mar 28.0 °C 51 % 34 km/h 0.3 mm Low 6
27 Mar 29.1 °C 61 % 35 km/h 5.5 mm Very low 1
28 Mar 29.6 °C 60 % 35 km/h 4.4 mm Very low 1
29 Mar 29.7 °C 57 % 45 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 4
30 Mar 30.3 °C 47 % 48 km/h 0.1 mm Low 8
31 Mar 29.6 °C 54 % 42 km/h 0.7 mm Low 7
1 Apr 30.4 °C 54 % 51 km/h 0.8 mm Low 7
2 Apr after 29.0 °C 62 % 44 km/h 2.6 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Mar 2026
After · 8 Apr 2026

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 24 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 7 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak7 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1011 µg/m³
Optical depth0.23
21222324252627282930311234
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 · 19Every 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 26 March 2026 and 1 April 2026: 7 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 1,184 hectares (11.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Vertientes (1,190 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.4 °C, humidity dropped to 47 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 8, class Low.
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.