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VE · Venezuela · →

Heres fire, 6 April 2019 Heres

Out · last detection 10 Apr 2019, 05:43 UTC

The fire started on 6 April 2019 in Heres, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,181 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 87th largest in Bolívar since 2016 (of 193 with a page). Number 138 in Venezuela in 2019, of 296.

The power measured by the satellite is low (29.4 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
2,181ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
6 Apr 2019 – 10 Apr 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
6 Apr
2019
Heat detections
43
in a single hotspot: 29 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
429MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Apr 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Apr10 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

678910

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
48km/h · peak gust
26%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
    2,195 ha reached on 6 Apr
    0.3 %

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)
6 Apr 36.3 °C 26 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
7 Apr 34.6 °C 32 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
8 Apr 36.3 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
9 Apr 36.0 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
10 Apr 37.1 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
11 Apr after 37.2 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
12 Apr after 37.9 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Apr after 38.2 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Apr after 36.4 °C 35 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Apr after 37.5 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
16 Apr after 36.3 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Apr after 36.1 °C 34 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
18 Apr after 34.7 °C 38 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Apr after 34.2 °C 38 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Apr after 37.0 °C 31 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Mar 2019
After · 17 Apr 2019

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 · 43Every 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 6 April 2019 and 10 April 2019: 5 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 2,181 hectares (21.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Heres (2,195 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.