How long did the Heres fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 February 2024 and 20 February 2024: 6 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 3,549 hectares (35.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Heres (2,239 ha, 0.3 %); Raúl Leoni (1,336 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 34.6 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.

VE · Venezuela · 2024-02-15 → 2024-02-20

Heres fire, 15 February 2024 Heres, Raúl Leoni

Out · last detection 20 Feb 2024, 18:11 UTC

The fire started on 15 February 2024 in Heres, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,549 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 35th largest in Bolívar since 2016 (of 193 with a page). Number 94 in Venezuela in 2024, of 482.

Burnt area: 3,549ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 6days; 15 Feb 2024 – 20 Feb 2024
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 15 Feb; 2024
Heat detections: 89; in a single hotspot: 30 MW
Danger at start: 35; High · FWI index
Energy released: 484MW; sum of detected power

Play back 20 Feb 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Feb20 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

1517181920

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

49km/h · peak gust

30%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

7% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 187 ha in 2017, 67 ha in 2023.

67 ha Raúl Leoni fire, March 2023 1,842 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Heres 342,280 inhabitants where it started

2,239 ha reached on 15 Feb

0.3 %
Raúl Leoni 40,927 inhabitants

1,336 ha reached on 18 Feb

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)
15 Feb	34.3 °C	33 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
16 Feb	33.8 °C	33 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
17 Feb	33.8 °C	32 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
18 Feb	34.2 °C	31 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
19 Feb	33.7 °C	34 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
20 Feb	34.6 °C	30 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
21 Feb after	34.5 °C	28 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
22 Feb after	34.9 °C	32 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
23 Feb after	35.2 °C	26 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
24 Feb after	34.2 °C	36 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
25 Feb after	34.4 °C	37 %	40 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 39
26 Feb after	33.3 °C	40 %	39 km/h	0.3 mm	High 34
27 Feb after	33.9 °C	31 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
28 Feb after	34.4 °C	27 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
29 Feb after	35.0 °C	28 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
1 Mar after	34.4 °C	31 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 8 Feb 2024

After · 27 Feb 2024

Before After

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 13 February 2024 the air beside the fire reached 27 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak27 µg/m³

Days over the guideline1 day

PM1035 µg/m³

Optical depth0.32

WHO 15

1314151617181920212223

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 · 89Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Venezuela ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Heres fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 February 2024 and 20 February 2024: 6 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 3,549 hectares (35.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Heres (2,239 ha, 0.3 %); Raúl Leoni (1,336 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 34.6 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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

Protección Civil ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned