How long did the Anzoátegui fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 13 March 2020 to 31 March 2020 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 13 March 2020 to 24 March 2020.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 11,200 hectares (112.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 4 municipalities: Anzoátegui (10,266 ha, 13 %); Nirgua (905 ha, 0.5 %); San Rafael de Onoto (66 ha, 0.3 %); Simón Planas (38 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, class Extreme.

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.

VE · Venezuela · 2020-03-13 → 2020-03-31

Anzoátegui fire, 13 March 2020 Anzoátegui, Nirgua, San Rafael de Onoto

Out · last detection 31 Mar 2020, 17:14 UTC

The fire started on 13 March 2020 in Anzoátegui, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,200 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the 9th largest in Cojedes since 2016 (of 219 with a page). Number 9 in Venezuela in 2020, of 402.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Simón Planas · 2020 Nirgua · 2020 Nirgua · 2026 San Carlos · 2020

Burnt area: 11,200ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 19days; 13 Mar 2020 – 31 Mar 2020
Municipalities hit: 4; municipalities
Started on: 13 Mar; 2020
Heat detections: 500; in a single hotspot: 44 MW
Danger at start: 42; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 163MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Mar31 Mar

Play back 31 Mar 2020

How it evolved, day by day

13 Mar 16 Mar 19 Mar 21 Mar 22 Mar 27 Mar 30 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

38°high

49km/h · peak gust

17%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.2 mm on 3 Apr.

This area had burned before

14% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 734 ha in 2016, 1,029 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,573 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 7.1% of the area of London (112 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

Anzoátegui 17,030 inhabitants where it started

10,266 ha reached on 13 Mar

13 %
Nirgua 58,932 inhabitants

905 ha reached on 15 Mar

0.5 %
San Rafael de Onoto 18,403 inhabitants

66 ha reached on 16 Mar

0.3 %
Simón Planas 35,802 inhabitants

38 ha reached on 16 Mar

0.0 %

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 2020

Built-up area0.66 ha

Residents≈ 100

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.66 hectares of built-up land and about 100 residents (GHSL 2020, 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.

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)
13 Mar	36.6 °C	27 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
14 Mar	36.2 °C	25 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
15 Mar	35.6 °C	24 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
16 Mar	35.9 °C	22 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
17 Mar	35.8 °C	23 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
18 Mar	35.9 °C	22 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
19 Mar	35.4 °C	24 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
20 Mar	35.1 °C	23 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
21 Mar	35.9 °C	22 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
22 Mar	35.4 °C	24 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
23 Mar	34.5 °C	31 %	32 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 39
24 Mar	36.0 °C	29 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
25 Mar	35.2 °C	31 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
26 Mar	35.8 °C	27 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
27 Mar	37.6 °C	19 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
28 Mar	36.8 °C	17 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
29 Mar	36.2 °C	25 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
30 Mar	37.2 °C	22 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
31 Mar	32.3 °C	33 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
1 Apr after	36.0 °C	26 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
2 Apr after	33.2 °C	40 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
3 Apr after	30.3 °C	56 %	43 km/h	6.2 mm	Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 6 Mar 2020

After · 7 Apr 2020

Before After

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 500Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Venezuela ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Anzoátegui fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 13 March 2020 to 31 March 2020 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 13 March 2020 to 24 March 2020.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 11,200 hectares (112.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 4 municipalities: Anzoátegui (10,266 ha, 13 %); Nirgua (905 ha, 0.5 %); San Rafael de Onoto (66 ha, 0.3 %); Simón Planas (38 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, class Extreme.
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.

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 ›

Protección Civil ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

25 October 2026 Last day with fire: 24 March 2020 → 31 March 2020.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

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What really happened?

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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 13 March 2020 to 24 March 2020. 500 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 2020, 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.

Where it burned