Burned area
satellite only15,404ha
Union of 4 GWIS (Copernicus) perimeters: overlapping areas count once.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 1 Mar 2024 – 31 Mar 2024
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
VE · Venezuela · –
Maturín fire, 1 March 2024 Maturín, Libertador
Out · last detection 31 Mar 2024, 17:21 UTC
The fire started on 1 March 2024 in Maturín, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 31 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,404 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 5th largest in Monagas since 2016 (of 142 with a page). Number 9 in Venezuela in 2024, of 482.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-27matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only31days
1 Mar 2024 to 31 Mar 2024: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 31 Mar 2024, 17:21 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only1 Mar 2024
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 1 Mar 2024
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
The worst day
satellite only1,137MW
Total radiative power on 14 March 2024; hotspots that day: 94.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 14 Mar 2024
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model30.0FWI · high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 4.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 1 Mar 2024, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model36.0°C · 35% RH
High of 36.0 °C and minimum humidity of 35% on 23 March 2024; gusts of 42 km/h on 7 March 2024.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 1 Mar 2024 – 31 Mar 2024
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
logStart date: 28 February 2024 → 1 March 2024.
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logStart date: 1 March 2024 → 28 February 2024.
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
Area logged each night
Move the slider to see which area the page published each day.
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/maturin-2024-03?v=2026-10-27A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire maturin-2024-03.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-03-01 | 12 | 21 | 33.3 | 22.9 | 45 | 16.1 | 37.4 | 0.3 | 30 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-02 | 23 | 164 | 33.5 | 23 | 41 | 16.1 | 37.4 | 0.1 | 30.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-03 | 21 | 207 | 33.7 | 22.2 | 38 | 14.6 | 31.7 | 0 | 29.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-04 | 26 | 236 | 34.9 | 21.8 | 39 | 14.7 | 31 | 0 | 29.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-05 | 31 | 265 | 35.9 | 23.6 | 38 | 15.6 | 33.8 | 0.1 | 30.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-06 | 31 | 115 | 33.3 | 24 | 51 | 15.2 | 39.2 | 0 | 27.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-07 | 6 | 7 | 33.7 | 24.6 | 51 | 17.7 | 42.1 | 0.8 | 23.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-08 | 1 | 2 | 33.6 | 25.4 | 48 | 15.8 | 39.6 | 0 | 25 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-09 | 24 | 440 | 35.6 | 25.2 | 38 | 15.2 | 36.4 | 0 | 30.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-10 | 25 | 425 | 33.7 | 24.4 | 44 | 14.7 | 34.2 | 0.2 | 30.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-11 | 62 | 474 | 35.3 | 24 | 38 | 15.8 | 34.2 | 0 | 31.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-12 | 4 | 5 | 35.4 | 24.8 | 39 | 16.8 | 36.4 | 0 | 32.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-13 | 38 | 404 | 33.4 | 24.6 | 48 | 16 | 36.4 | 0.1 | 30.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-14 | 94 | 1,137 | 32.9 | 24.7 | 50 | 16.8 | 37.1 | 0 | 29.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-15 | 55 | 531 | 33.4 | 25.7 | 47 | 15.8 | 36.4 | 0.2 | 29.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-16 | 32 | 208 | 32.7 | 24.5 | 51 | 16.2 | 40 | 0.2 | 28.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-17 | 6 | 54 | 35.1 | 25.1 | 44 | 18.4 | 42.1 | 0.3 | 30.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-18 | 7 | 19 | 32.7 | 25.8 | 54 | 17 | 41 | 1.3 | 18.2 | moderado | 1 |
| 2024-03-19 | 0 | 0 | 33.1 | 25.3 | 47 | 15.8 | 41.4 | 0.6 | 24.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-20 | 6 | 71 | 33.8 | 24.5 | 42 | 15.6 | 36.4 | 0 | 28.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-21 | 6 | 60 | 34.8 | 25.2 | 40 | 16.1 | 34.9 | 0.4 | 30.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-22 | 32 | 201 | 34.1 | 24.9 | 38 | 16.6 | 34.9 | 0 | 32.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-23 | 20 | 134 | 36 | 22.3 | 35 | 16.3 | 33.8 | 0 | 34.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-24 | 25 | 278 | 35.4 | 23.5 | 36 | 15.6 | 33.1 | 0 | 34.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-25 | 23 | 138 | 35.4 | 25.1 | 38 | 14.1 | 35.6 | 0 | 33.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-26 | 11 | 161 | 35.7 | 24.4 | 39 | 16.4 | 33.5 | 0 | 35.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-27 | 37 | 232 | 35.6 | 23.6 | 36 | 13.8 | 28.4 | 0 | 33.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-28 | 27 | 119 | 34.7 | 23.8 | 43 | 13.4 | 26.6 | 0.1 | 32.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-29 | 0 | 0 | 34.4 | 23.7 | 43 | 17.1 | 38.5 | 0.1 | 35.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-30 | 24 | 339 | 35.2 | 24.4 | 39 | 17.6 | 36.4 | 0 | 36 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-31 | 16 | 79 | 33.4 | 25 | 48 | 12.3 | 31.3 | 1.8 | 15.1 | moderado | 1 |
| 2024-04-01 | 0 | 0 | 31.4 | 24.5 | 58 | 15 | 36.7 | 16.4 | 3.9 | muy_bajo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 15,404ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 31days
- 1 Mar 2024 – 31 Mar 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 1 Mar
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 725
- in a single hotspot: 0 MW
- Danger at start
- 30
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 225MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
1 Mar31 Mar
31 Mar 2024
How it evolved, day by day
1 Mar
7 Mar
14 Mar
20 Mar
26 Mar
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
36°high
42km/h · peak gust
35%lowest humidity
It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 16.4 mm on 1 Apr.
This area had burned before
49% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 437 ha in 2016, 5,133 ha in 2019, 3,699 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,557 ha that had burned before.
- 2,835 ha Maturín fire, April 2019 3,820 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,081 ha Maturín fire, April 2020 2,061 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 437 ha Maturín fire, March 2016 1,559 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 408 ha Libertador fire, April 2019 1,852 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
12,919 ha1.0 %
-
Libertador 45,274 inhabitants2,785 ha0.8 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20
Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Mar | 33.3 °C | 45 % | 37 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 30 |
| 2 Mar | 33.5 °C | 41 % | 37 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 30 |
| 3 Mar | 33.7 °C | 38 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 4 Mar | 34.9 °C | 39 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 5 Mar | 35.9 °C | 38 % | 34 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 31 |
| 6 Mar | 33.3 °C | 51 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 7 Mar | 33.7 °C | 51 % | 42 km/h | 0.8 mm | High 23 |
| 8 Mar | 33.6 °C | 48 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 9 Mar | 35.6 °C | 38 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 10 Mar | 33.7 °C | 44 % | 34 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 30 |
| 11 Mar | 35.3 °C | 38 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 12 Mar | 35.4 °C | 39 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 13 Mar | 33.4 °C | 48 % | 36 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 30 |
| 14 Mar | 32.9 °C | 50 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 15 Mar | 33.4 °C | 47 % | 36 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 29 |
| 16 Mar | 32.7 °C | 51 % | 40 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 29 |
| 17 Mar | 35.1 °C | 44 % | 42 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 31 |
| 18 Mar | 32.7 °C | 54 % | 41 km/h | 1.3 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 19 Mar | 33.1 °C | 47 % | 41 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 24 |
| 20 Mar | 33.8 °C | 42 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 21 Mar | 34.8 °C | 40 % | 35 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 31 |
| 22 Mar | 34.1 °C | 38 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 23 Mar | 36.0 °C | 35 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 24 Mar | 35.4 °C | 36 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 25 Mar | 35.4 °C | 38 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 26 Mar | 35.7 °C | 39 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 27 Mar | 35.6 °C | 36 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 28 Mar | 34.7 °C | 43 % | 27 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 32 |
| 29 Mar | 34.4 °C | 43 % | 38 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 35 |
| 30 Mar | 35.2 °C | 39 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 31 Mar | 33.4 °C | 48 % | 31 km/h | 1.8 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 1 Apr after | 31.4 °C | 58 % | 37 km/h | 16.4 mm | Very low 4 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 30.0, a minimum humidity of 45% and 4 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 29.
FWI at the start
30.0
Minimum humidity
45 %
Days without rain
4
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Maturín fire, 1 March 2024
15,404 ha
31 days
FWI 30.0
Min. humidity 45 %
Piar fire, April 2020
1,602 ha
10 days
FWI 29.9
Min. humidity 44 %
162 km away, in 2020
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.2 mm on 19 Apr.
Libertador fire, February 2024
6,848 ha
9 days
FWI 30.0
Min. humidity 43 %
98 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Maturín fire, February 2024
1,511 ha
3 days
FWI 31.6
Min. humidity 44 %
51 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.1 mm on 24 Feb.
Libertador fire, February 2024
1,643 ha
2 days
FWI 30.0
Min. humidity 41 %
93 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Casacoima fire, March 2016
1,542 ha
9 days
FWI 31.6
Min. humidity 47 %
107 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 9.6 mm on 31 Mar.
What happened to them
- 7 days
- median duration
- 1,643 ha
- median area
- 100 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- 2.0 mm
- rain at the end (median; 20 of 29 had it)
It was 9.4 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 31 days, against 7 days.
Only 1 of its 29 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 9 of 29, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.0 mm.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
16.4 mmfirst rain
1 Aprthe day after it ended
42km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 31 Mar, and on 1 Apr 16.4 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 20 of 29, with a median of 2.0 mm.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 23 Feb 2024
After · 7 Apr 2024
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · CopernicusOn 14 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 28 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 15: 1.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak28 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1040 µg/m³
Optical depth0.69
WHO 15
28 Feb7 Mar15 Mar23 Mar31 Mar
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 · 0Every 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 |
|---|
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Maturín fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 March 2024 and 31 March 2024: 31 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 15,404 hectares (154.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Maturín (12,919 ha, 1.0 %); Libertador (2,785 ha, 0.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class 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.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 29. Their median duration was 7 days and their median area 1,643 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 1 of its 29 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 9 of 29, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.0 mm.
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 · Emergency number and official warnings
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 28 February 2024 → 1 March 2024.
- Start date: 1 March 2024 → 28 February 2024.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 4 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.