Grave incendio en Villa de Leyva hoy, 23 de septiembre: conflagración está controlada en un 78 % y 1.340 hectáreas han sido afectadas, según la UNGRD was recorded by Global Incident Tracker on Wednesday, 23 September 2026 at 09:43 UTC. The event is classified as a fire incident with a severity rating of Minor, and was detected through PRESS.
Reported by El Tiempo, a national news outlet in Colombia. Read directly from the publisher's own feed rather than through a news aggregator.
Where this happened
The incident is located in Colombia (South America), whose capital is Bogotá. Historically, Colombia is most affected by floods, landslides, earthquakes and volcanic activity. You can follow every incident recorded in this country, updated live, on the Colombia incident tracker.
Approximate coordinates of the reported event are 4.600°, -74.300°. The marker on the map above shows this position; for news-derived reports the location reflects the place named in media coverage and may represent a district or city rather than an exact site.
Understanding fire events
Structural, factory, market, hospital and residential fires. Most fire deaths are caused by smoke inhalation rather than flames, and a room can reach untenable conditions within a few minutes of ignition. Working smoke alarms and clear, unlocked exits remain the two measures that save the most lives.
How severity is rated
Global Incident Tracker rates every event on a four-step scale — Minor, Moderate, Severe and Extreme — derived from the source signal: earthquake magnitude, official GDACS alert colour, or the volume of independent media reporting for news-derived incidents. This event is currently rated Minor. Ratings can change as more information becomes available, and a rating is a monitoring signal rather than an official government assessment.
Safety guidance for fire situations
- Get out and stay out; never return for possessions.
- Stay low under smoke and close doors behind you to slow the spread.
- If a door feels hot, do not open it — use your second exit route.
- Call emergency services from outside, not from inside the building.
- Follow only official instructions from local authorities and emergency services — this page is a monitoring record, not an emergency alert.
Data and verification
This record was generated automatically from PRESS and de-duplicated against our archive. Early reports for any incident can be revised: locations get refined, magnitudes are recalculated and impact figures change as assessments arrive. We deliberately do not publish casualty numbers unless an official source states them. The original source report is linked at the top of this page.
Keep watching the situation on our live world incident map, browse every fires we track on the Fire tracker, or see today's global picture on the incidents today page.
Timeline and sources
Reported
Reported by National press. Not independently confirmed. Copies of one syndicated story are counted once.
How statuses are decided · the number of reports is never treated as confirmation.
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· received · event time 23 Sep 2026, 09:43 UTCFirst report News report
First recorded from National press.
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· received · event time 23 Sep 2026, 12:17 UTCAlso reported News report
Also reported by National press: "Grave incendio en Villa de Leyva hoy, 23 de septiembre: la UNGRD destinó $3.000 millones para reforzar la respuesta aérea contra el incendio forestal"
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· received · event time 23 Sep 2026, 14:13 UTCAlso reported News report
Also reported by National press: "Grave incendio en Villa de Leyva hoy, 23 de septiembre: Carlos Amaya, gobernador de Boyacá, confirma que tienen controladas las llamas en un 90%"
Times are when this site received each report, in UTC; the event time is shown where the source gave one. 3 reports are attached to this incident. Copies of one syndicated story count as one report.
Conditions at the time
7.7 mm of rain fell that day, and the temperature peaked at 18°C.
Weather reanalysis for this location and date via Open-Meteo.