Tolima has been burning for almost two months.
If you are in Tolima, read this page in Spanish — it carries the instructions that matter. This version is for everyone else.
Updated 24 September 2026. The situation changes by the hour — verify before acting on anything here.
Where you can actually give
This page tells you who is receiving donations and what for. It will never tell you where to send them: no bank account, no QR code, no payment link. That is blocked by design, not an omission.
For this cause we collect only on vaki.co: in the Fondo de emergencia Tolima (Tolima emergency fund) once it opens, and in the verified vakis shown on this site, each with the people who run it named. If a contribution did not go through one of them, it did not go through us.
A Red Cross bank account circulating on social media is from a 2024 campaign, not this emergency. Every official 2026 campaign we found collects goods, not money.
The fund will be announced here as soon as it opens. Until then this page collects nothing for it.
The only places this page will ever send you to donate are the Fondo de emergencia Tolima and the verified vakis on vaki.co shown here. Any other payment destination in this page’s name is fraud — no exceptions, whoever sends it to you.
How we verify
This page does not wait for an authority to confirm every item: that takes hours the emergency does not have. But it does not stamp a rumour as true either. The full method is published so anyone can audit it.
We never say "verified". We say what evidence exists.
- 01 Unconfirmed A single report from one person.
Anyone can create one, no account needed. It is shown with a warning and is never used to send anyone anywhere.
- 02 Multiple reports Several independent reports of the same claim.
Independent means: a different phone, separated in time, and not arrived through the same link. We show how many there are.
- 03 Confirmed on site Someone reported it while physically there, and a different person confirmed it afterwards.
Requires a phone-verified account. One voice is never enough, and never the voice of whoever asked for it to be published.
- 04 Press A news outlet quotes an official, but there is no communique we can link to.
This is the most common case in the first 48 hours and it sits one rung below official. Almost every hectare and evacuee figure lives here.
- 05 Official source A communique from the mayor’s office, UNGRD, the fire service or the state government.
The only state that says "official". It is never granted by a citizen vote.
- 06 Disputed Reports contradict each other — shown, never hidden.
A single report of "this is false" or "this is dangerous" triggers it immediately. Flagging is deliberately easier than confirming.
- 07 Expired Nobody has confirmed it in the last 12 hours.
Emergency information expires. A collection point verified yesterday is not a collection point verified today.
How strong each signal really is
We are explicit about this because a trust badge anyone can issue is worse than no badge at all.
- Weak Browser geolocation
Falsifiable in seconds. Useful for grouping reports by area, never as proof that someone was there.
- Medium Phone verified by code
It proves nothing about who you are, but it costs enough to slow down anyone trying to inflate a claim at scale.
- Medium Another person vouching
Counts only if independent. Ten confirmations from the same WhatsApp group are one voice.
- Strong Track record
Whoever previously reported things that were later confirmed weighs more. We do not need their name for that.
The two rules that are not negotiable
- Never a single voice — and never the voice of the same message asking for the claim to go up or come down. Two sources are required, and one of them cannot be whoever asked.
- Flagging is fast, taking down is slow. Casting doubt destroys nothing and protects whoever was about to act on that claim. Promoting it to a stronger state always takes longer. The asymmetry is deliberate: the expensive error is not leaving something unconfirmed, it is sending trucks and volunteers to the wrong address.
Reading never requires an account. Neither does reporting, though it is rate-limited per device. Publishing a collection point or an offer of help does require phone verification, because it is a commitment someone else will act on.
What is reported
The emergency began around 1 August 2026. By 23 September the Tolima state government counted 270 fires in 44 of the department’s 47 municipalities, over 54 days.
Prensa Figures as of 24 September 2026. They come from press reports quoting officials, plus one Army communique — one rung below "official source" unless the communique is linked.
- Active fires
- The count changes by the hour. At 9:00 a.m. on 23 September eight fires were active (La Veintitrés); a state-government report the same day, with no hour, listed only Ortega, Chaparral and Prado as still burning.
- Area
- 31,046 hectares affected as of 26 August, according to Cortolima, the regional environmental authority (El Tiempo, 4:35 p.m.). In San Luis alone the fire reached 10,200 hectares by 9 September. Other agencies have given figures we could not trace to a source.
- Farmers
- 28,000 producers affected, 14,340 hectares of crops lost and an estimated COP 134 billion in losses, as of 1 September (360 Radio).
- Homes
- More than 50 homes affected by mid-August (Q’hubo Ibagué); four rural homes destroyed in San Luis by 9 September (El Tiempo).
- Response
- 12 aircraft, more than 800 people and over 3 million litres of water, plus COP 4 billion from UNGRD, the national disaster agency (La Veintitrés, 23 September). The Army was flying an MI-17 helicopter over Prado and Ortega the same afternoon (Army communique, 5:16 p.m.).
- Measures
- Departmental public calamity (Decree 0553, 13 August); national public calamity and disaster declared on 27 August, with a reward of up to COP 50 million for information on those responsible.
- Cause
- More than 90 % were set by people, according to Cortolima (Blu Radio, 25 August).
- Drought and earthquakes
- Rain from 1 to 20 September was 23 % of normal, and Chaparral had more than 130 earthquakes on 21 September, according to the state government (Ciudad y Región).
How many fires are still burning? En disputa
Two reports from the same day, 23 September.
Eight active fires
- At 9:00 a.m.: Ataco, Chaparral, Espinal, Ortega, Prado, Rovira, San Luis and Villahermosa (La Veintitrés, published at 2:16 p.m.).
Only Ortega, Chaparral and Prado
- The state government, quoted by Ciudad y Región the same day, with no hour given.
Why it matters
A count of active fires is only true at the hour it was made. Earlier in September the press counted six (Semana, 9 September, 10:11 a.m.), twelve (El Tiempo, 16 September, 4:33 p.m.) and nine (UNGRD cut-off of 18 September, 6 p.m., via Infobae).
What we do with it
We show both, with their source and hour, and say "fires still active" rather than a number when the hour is missing.
Why the rules on this page
Three facts about this emergency explain most of what this page asks.
Cortolima says more than 90 %. That is why the Spanish page asks people not to burn anything.
A Red Cross bank account circulating on social media is from a 2024 campaign. Every official 2026 campaign we found collects goods, not money — and this page never publishes an account number, not even to warn about one.
A seismic swarm in Chaparral and the 10 August Chocó earthquake overlap with the fires, and many collection points serve both.