How long did the Biruaca fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 March 2023 and 22 March 2023: 6 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 1,875 hectares (18.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Biruaca (1,887 ha, 1.8 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 51 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 · 2023-03-17 → 2023-03-22

Biruaca fire, March 2023 Biruaca

Out · last detection 22 Mar 2023, 17:54 UTC

The fire started on 17 March 2023 in Biruaca, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,875 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 601th largest in Apure since 2016 (of 919 with a page). Number 114 in Venezuela in 2023, of 193.

Burnt area: 1,875ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 6days; 17 Mar 2023 – 22 Mar 2023
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 17 Mar; 2023
Heat detections: 75; in a single hotspot: 144 MW
Danger at start: 47; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 850MW; sum of detected power

Play back 22 Mar 2023

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Mar22 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

171819202122

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

51km/h · peak gust

20%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

31% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 342 ha in 2020, 317 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 586 ha that had burned before.

342 ha Biruaca fire, March 2020 2,803 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Biruaca 54,323 inhabitants where it started

1,887 ha reached on 17 Mar

1.8 %

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)
17 Mar	38.9 °C	21 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
18 Mar	38.8 °C	22 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
19 Mar	38.0 °C	20 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
20 Mar	36.9 °C	23 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
21 Mar	35.9 °C	32 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
22 Mar	37.5 °C	21 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
23 Mar after	37.8 °C	23 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
24 Mar after	38.2 °C	22 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
25 Mar after	36.3 °C	28 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
26 Mar after	37.1 °C	25 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
27 Mar after	37.5 °C	24 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
28 Mar after	38.3 °C	22 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
29 Mar after	37.3 °C	23 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
30 Mar after	38.3 °C	29 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
31 Mar after	36.3 °C	35 %	47 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 44
1 Apr after	36.3 °C	35 %	48 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 10 Mar 2023

After · 29 Mar 2023

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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 25 March 2023 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak23 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1034 µg/m³

Optical depth0.48

WHO 15

1516171819202122232425

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 · 75Every 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 Biruaca fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 March 2023 and 22 March 2023: 6 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 1,875 hectares (18.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Biruaca (1,887 ha, 1.8 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 51 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

Protección Civil ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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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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