Skip to content
worldfires
VE · Venezuela · →

Heres fire, 14 April 2020 Heres

Out · last detection 18 Apr 2020, 18:16 UTC

The fire started on 14 April 2020 in Heres, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,549 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 175th largest in Bolívar since 2016 (of 193 with a page). Number 377 in Venezuela in 2020, of 402.

The power measured by the satellite is low (25.4 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
1,549ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
14 Apr 2020 – 18 Apr 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
14 Apr
2020
Heat detections
39
in a single hotspot: 25 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
299MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Apr 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Apr18 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

1415161718

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
42km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

60% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 923 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Heres 342,280 inhabitants where it started
    1,558 ha reached on 14 Apr
    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)
14 Apr 34.4 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 Apr 35.0 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Apr 34.4 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Apr 34.6 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Apr 35.2 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Apr after 32.5 °C 40 % 37 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 39
20 Apr after 33.6 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Apr after 35.6 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Apr after 33.6 °C 41 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Apr after 34.9 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Apr after 35.4 °C 24 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Apr after 34.0 °C 34 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Apr after 32.3 °C 42 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Apr after 32.9 °C 44 % 38 km/h 0.9 mm High 28
28 Apr after 33.3 °C 42 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 29

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Apr 2020
After · 25 Apr 2020

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 · 39Every 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 14 April 2020 and 18 April 2020: 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 1,549 hectares (15.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Heres (1,558 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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.