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VE · Venezuela · –

Achaguas fire, 16 February 2024 Pedro Camejo, Achaguas

Out · last detection 7 Mar 2024, 18:11 UTC

The fire started on 16 February 2024 in Achaguas, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,871 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 2th largest in Apure since 2016 (of 761 with a page). Number 8 in Venezuela in 2024, of 482.

Burnt area
15,871ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
21days
16 Feb 2024 – 7 Mar 2024
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
16 Feb
2024
Heat detections
685
in a single hotspot: 136 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Average daily power
368MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Feb7 Mar
7 Mar 2024

How it evolved, day by day

16 Feb 2024 · 91 MW · 14 17 Feb 2024 · 351 MW · 35 18 Feb 2024 · 13 MW · 5 19 Feb 2024 · 13 MW · 4 20 Feb 2024 · 77 MW · 8 21 Feb 2024 · 12 MW · 4 22 Feb 2024 · 173 MW · 12 23 Feb 2024 · 710 MW · 64 24 Feb 2024 · 710 MW · 57 25 Feb 2024 · 1,665 MW · 102 26 Feb 2024 · 284 MW · 34 27 Feb 2024 · 773 MW · 51 28 Feb 2024 · 1,247 MW · 108 29 Feb 2024 · 360 MW · 46 1 Mar 2024 · 182 MW · 25 2 Mar 2024 · 151 MW · 32 3 Mar 2024 · 97 MW · 10 4 Mar 2024 · 145 MW · 13 5 Mar 2024 · 318 MW · 30 6 Mar 2024 · 278 MW · 22 7 Mar 2024 · 73 MW · 9
16 Feb 21 Feb 25 Feb 2 Mar 7 Mar

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
48km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,390 ha in 2016, 1,774 ha in 2017, 4,826 ha in 2018, 3,603 ha in 2019, 5,983 ha in 2020, 1,115 ha in 2021, 8,305 ha in 2022, 3,990 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 13,050 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 10% of the area of London (159 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. 12,506 ha reached on 16 Feb
    0.6 %
  2. Achaguas 28,966 inhabitants where it started
    3,487 ha reached on 16 Feb
    0.2 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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 Feb 36.5 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
17 Feb 36.5 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
18 Feb 37.3 °C 31 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Feb 36.5 °C 31 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Feb 37.7 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Feb 37.2 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Feb 36.7 °C 31 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Feb 36.7 °C 30 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Feb 37.3 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
25 Feb 37.7 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Feb 36.5 °C 37 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
27 Feb 36.1 °C 35 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Feb 36.8 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Feb 37.2 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
1 Mar 37.1 °C 27 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
2 Mar 36.1 °C 28 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Mar 36.5 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Mar 37.6 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
5 Mar 38.1 °C 32 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 Mar 37.6 °C 36 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Mar 38.9 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Mar after 38.4 °C 32 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Mar after 39.9 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Mar after 38.8 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Mar after 40.4 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Mar after 39.5 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Mar after 39.5 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
14 Mar after 39.3 °C 30 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Mar after 39.1 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
16 Mar after 39.4 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
17 Mar after 39.4 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 29.4, a minimum humidity of 31% and 7 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 20.

FWI at the start 29.4
Minimum humidity 31 %
Days without rain 7
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Arismendi fire, April 2019
1,507 ha 6 days FWI 30.3 Min. humidity 31 % 44 km away, in 2019

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

6 days
median duration
1,857 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.5 mm
rain at the end (median; 13 of 20 had it)

It was 8.5 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 21 days, against 6 days.

None of its 20 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 7 of 20, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.5 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
48km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 7 Mar, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 13 of 20, with a median of 2.5 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Feb 2024
After · 14 Mar 2024

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 29 February 2024 the air beside the fire reached 40 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 25: 1.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak40 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1057 µg/m³
Optical depth0.86
21 Feb24 Feb27 Feb1 Mar4 Mar
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 · 685Every 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 Venezuela

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Achaguas fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 February 2024 to 7 March 2024 (21 days). The perimeter dates it from 23 February 2024 to 1 March 2024.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 15,871 hectares (158.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Pedro Camejo (12,506 ha, 0.6 %); Achaguas (3,487 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Venezuela (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 20. Their median duration was 6 days and their median area 1,857 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. None of its 20 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 7 of 20, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.5 mm.

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: 911 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 1 March 2024 → 7 March 2024.
  2. Start date: 23 February 2024 → 16 February 2024.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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 911.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 23 February 2024 to 1 March 2024. 685 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.