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VE · Venezuela · →

Biruaca fire, 21 March 2026 Biruaca, Pedro Camejo, San Fernando

Out · last detection 26 Mar 2026, 17:34 UTC

The fire started on 21 March 2026 in Biruaca, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,438 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 69th largest in Apure since 2016 (of 919 with a page). Number 43 in Venezuela in 2026, of 396.

Burnt area
5,438ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
21 Mar 2026 – 27 Mar 2026
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
21 Mar
2026
Heat detections
187
in a single hotspot: 87 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Mar 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Mar27 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

212223242526

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
47km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 48 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.9 mm on 29 Mar.

This area had burned before

83% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,208 ha in 2020, 1,367 ha in 2022, 1,263 ha in 2023, 3,699 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,518 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Biruaca 54,323 inhabitants where it started
    5,321 ha reached on 21 Mar
    5.1 %
  2. Pedro Camejo
    129 ha
    0.0 %
  3. San Fernando 165,135 inhabitants
    22 ha
    0.0 %

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)
21 Mar 39.5 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
22 Mar 40.5 °C 18 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
23 Mar 39.5 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
24 Mar 39.3 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
25 Mar 39.8 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
26 Mar 38.3 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
27 Mar 38.7 °C 28 % 47 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 50
28 Mar after 38.5 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 46
29 Mar after 37.4 °C 30 % 35 km/h 3.9 mm Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Mar 2026
After · 3 Apr 2026

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 30 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 19 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak19 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1019 µg/m³
Optical depth0.46
12131415161718192021222324252627282930
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 · 187Every 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 21 March 2026 and 27 March 2026: 7 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 5,438 hectares (54.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Biruaca (5,321 ha, 5.1 %); Pedro Camejo (129 ha, 0.0 %); San Fernando (22 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.5 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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.