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VE · Venezuela · →

Biruaca fire, March 2024 Biruaca

Out · last detection 18 Mar 2024, 18:05 UTC

The fire started on 10 March 2024 in Biruaca, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,154 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 484th largest in Apure since 2016 (of 919 with a page). Number 241 in Venezuela in 2024, of 482.

Burnt area
2,154ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
10 Mar 2024 – 17 Mar 2024
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
10 Mar
2024
Heat detections
74
in a single hotspot: 72 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
817MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Mar 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Mar17 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

101112131415161718

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
45km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 2 Apr.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Biruaca 54,323 inhabitants where it started
    2,168 ha reached on 4 Mar
    2.1 %

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)
4 Mar 38.4 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Mar 38.9 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Mar 38.4 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Mar 39.5 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 40
8 Mar 39.4 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Mar 40.2 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 Mar 39.6 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Mar 41.1 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Mar 40.5 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Mar 40.5 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
14 Mar 39.8 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Mar 39.9 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
16 Mar 39.9 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
17 Mar 40.0 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Mar after 39.3 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
19 Mar after 39.1 °C 30 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Mar after 40.9 °C 24 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
21 Mar after 41.3 °C 17 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
22 Mar after 39.4 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
23 Mar after 39.2 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
24 Mar after 39.0 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Mar after 39.9 °C 27 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Mar after 38.4 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
27 Mar after 39.0 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
28 Mar after 38.2 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Mar after 39.3 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
30 Mar after 37.7 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Mar after 37.1 °C 32 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Apr after 39.1 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 46
2 Apr after 37.0 °C 40 % 43 km/h 1.4 mm High 31

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Mar 2024
After · 24 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 16 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 22 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak22 µg/m³
Days over the guideline7 days
PM1032 µg/m³
Optical depth0.51
891011121314151617181920
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 · 74Every 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 Biruaca fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 March 2024 and 17 March 2024: 8 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 2,154 hectares (21.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Biruaca (2,168 ha, 2.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.3 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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

Satellite cross-check

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.

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.