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VE · Venezuela · →

Muñoz fire, 13 January 2019 Muñoz

Out · last detection 16 Jan 2019, 18:04 UTC

The fire started on 13 January 2019 in Muñoz, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,820 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 629th largest in Apure since 2016 (of 919 with a page). Number 193 in Venezuela in 2019, of 296.

Burnt area
1,820ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
13 Jan 2019 – 16 Jan 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
13 Jan
2019
Heat detections
42
in a single hotspot: 34 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Energy released
367MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Jan 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Jan16 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

13141516

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
44km/h · peak gust
38%lowest humidity

It had gone 47 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
    1,832 ha reached on 13 Jan
    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)
6 Jan 33.5 °C 38 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
7 Jan 31.9 °C 46 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
8 Jan 32.6 °C 43 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
9 Jan 31.8 °C 47 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
10 Jan 32.5 °C 47 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
11 Jan 33.7 °C 40 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
12 Jan 33.5 °C 44 % 44 km/h 0.2 mm High 26
13 Jan 32.8 °C 39 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
14 Jan 32.8 °C 41 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
15 Jan 33.1 °C 39 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
16 Jan 32.7 °C 42 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
17 Jan after 33.8 °C 47 % 39 km/h 0.2 mm High 26
18 Jan after 33.2 °C 47 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
19 Jan after 34.1 °C 38 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
20 Jan after 34.4 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
21 Jan after 33.9 °C 43 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
22 Jan after 33.8 °C 39 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
23 Jan after 33.5 °C 41 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
24 Jan after 34.1 °C 39 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
25 Jan after 34.2 °C 38 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
26 Jan after 33.6 °C 38 % 35 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 · 6 Jan 2019
After · 23 Jan 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 · 42Every 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 13 January 2019 and 16 January 2019: 4 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 1,820 hectares (18.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Muñoz (1,832 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 38 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, 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.

Report an error
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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.