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Muñoz fire, 12 January 2016 Muñoz

Out · last detection 18 Jan 2016, 18:19 UTC

The fire started on 12 January 2016 in Muñoz, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,398 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 119th largest in Apure since 2016 (of 919 with a page). Number 31 in Venezuela in 2016, of 238.

Burnt area
4,398ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
12 Jan 2016 – 17 Jan 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
12 Jan
2016
Heat detections
121
in a single hotspot: 88 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Jan 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Jan17 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

12131415161718

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
41km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone 20 days 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. Muñoz 27,542 inhabitants where it started
    4,430 ha reached on 7 Jan
    0.6 %

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)
7 Jan 38.1 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
8 Jan 37.2 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
9 Jan 36.4 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
10 Jan 36.6 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
11 Jan 36.6 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
12 Jan 36.6 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
13 Jan 36.2 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
14 Jan 36.9 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
15 Jan 36.4 °C 35 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
16 Jan 36.0 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
17 Jan 36.3 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
18 Jan after 36.0 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
19 Jan after 36.4 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Jan after 35.7 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Jan after 36.6 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
22 Jan after 37.0 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
23 Jan after 37.2 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Jan after 36.8 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Jan after 37.4 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
26 Jan after 36.5 °C 31 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Jan after 36.4 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 Jan after 35.9 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Jan after 37.0 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Jan 2016
After · 24 Jan 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 · 121Every 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 Muñoz fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 January 2016 and 17 January 2016: 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 4,398 hectares (44.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Muñoz (4,430 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.1 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, 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.

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.

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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.