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VE · Venezuela · →

Muñoz fire, 20 February 2019 Muñoz

Out · last detection 24 Feb 2019, 17:33 UTC

The fire started on 20 February 2019 in Muñoz, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,567 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 833th largest in Apure since 2016 (of 919 with a page). Number 262 in Venezuela in 2019, of 296.

The power measured by the satellite is low (26.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
1,567ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
20 Feb 2019 – 24 Feb 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
20 Feb
2019
Heat detections
40
in a single hotspot: 26 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
346MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Feb 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Feb24 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

20212324

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
48km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 56 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 13 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Muñoz 27,542 inhabitants where it started
    1,576 ha reached on 20 Feb
    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)
15 Feb 37.5 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
16 Feb 37.7 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Feb 36.3 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Feb 34.4 °C 35 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Feb 31.4 °C 41 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
20 Feb 35.0 °C 32 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
21 Feb 35.2 °C 32 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Feb 35.5 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Feb 35.2 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Feb 34.6 °C 28 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
25 Feb after 34.8 °C 30 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Feb after 35.3 °C 27 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Feb after 34.8 °C 33 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Feb after 35.5 °C 34 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Mar after 36.9 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Mar after 36.2 °C 30 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Mar after 35.6 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Mar after 36.1 °C 35 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
5 Mar after 36.9 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
6 Mar after 36.6 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Feb 2019
After · 3 Mar 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 · 40Every 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 20 February 2019 and 24 February 2019: 5 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 1,567 hectares (15.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Muñoz (1,576 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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

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
What do you think is wrong?

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.