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VE · Venezuela · →

Muñoz fire, 22 January 2019 Muñoz

Out · last detection 30 Jan 2019, 05:57 UTC

The fire started on 22 January 2019 in Muñoz, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,753 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 174th largest in Apure since 2016 (of 919 with a page). Number 53 in Venezuela in 2019, of 296.

Burnt area
3,753ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
22 Jan 2019 – 29 Jan 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
22 Jan
2019
Heat detections
105
in a single hotspot: 56 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

30 Jan 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Jan29 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

22232425262930

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
37%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,414 ha in 2016, 2,771 ha in 2017, 1,218 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,485 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Muñoz 27,542 inhabitants where it started
    3,779 ha reached on 22 Jan
    0.5 %

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)
22 Jan 33.8 °C 39 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
23 Jan 33.5 °C 41 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
24 Jan 34.1 °C 39 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
25 Jan 34.2 °C 38 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
26 Jan 33.6 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
27 Jan 34.6 °C 37 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
28 Jan 35.2 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
29 Jan 35.1 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Jan after 34.2 °C 38 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
31 Jan after 35.0 °C 34 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
1 Feb after 34.4 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
2 Feb after 33.6 °C 35 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Feb after 35.3 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 Feb after 34.2 °C 40 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 Feb after 35.3 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
6 Feb after 35.2 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
7 Feb after 35.5 °C 33 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Feb after 35.6 °C 34 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
9 Feb after 35.5 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Jan 2019
After · 5 Feb 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 · 105Every 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 22 January 2019 and 29 January 2019: 8 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 3,753 hectares (37.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Muñoz (3,779 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 37 % and gusts hit 42 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.