Skip to content
worldfires
VE · Venezuela · →

Heres fire, 18 March 2016 Heres

Out · last detection 18 Mar 2016, 05:07 UTC

The fire started on 18 March 2016 in Heres, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,513 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 190th largest in Bolívar since 2016 (of 193 with a page). Number 234 in Venezuela in 2016, of 238.

The power measured by the satellite is low (3.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
1,513ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
1day
18 Mar 2016 – 18 Mar 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
18 Mar
2016
Heat detections
34
in a single hotspot: 4 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
62MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Mar18 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

18

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
45km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Heres 342,280 inhabitants where it started
    1,523 ha reached on 18 Mar
    0.2 %

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)
18 Mar 36.6 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Mar after 37.5 °C 25 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Mar after 38.0 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
21 Mar after 37.2 °C 32 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Mar after 37.5 °C 26 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
23 Mar after 36.7 °C 27 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
24 Mar after 34.9 °C 38 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Mar after 34.5 °C 34 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Mar after 34.2 °C 34 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
27 Mar after 34.2 °C 39 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
28 Mar after 35.2 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Mar 2016
After · 25 Mar 2016

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 · 34Every 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 Heres fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 March 2016 and 18 March 2016: 1 day 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 1,513 hectares (15.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Heres (1,523 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.

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.