Skip to content
worldfires
VE · Venezuela · →

Muñoz fire, 10 March 2020 Muñoz

Out · last detection 18 Mar 2020, 06:53 UTC

The fire started on 10 March 2020 in Muñoz, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,262 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 221th largest in Apure since 2016 (of 919 with a page). Number 91 in Venezuela in 2020, of 402.

Burnt area
3,262ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
10 Mar 2020 – 18 Mar 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
10 Mar
2020
Heat detections
96
in a single hotspot: 31 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
919MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Mar 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Mar18 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

1011121415161718

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
47km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 54 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,317 ha in 2017, 1,466 ha in 2018, 2,385 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,888 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Muñoz 27,542 inhabitants where it started
    3,282 ha reached on 10 Mar
    0.4 %

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)
10 Mar 35.1 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Mar 37.4 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Mar 36.6 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Mar 38.3 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Mar 37.6 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
15 Mar 37.5 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Mar 38.4 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 Mar 37.5 °C 24 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
18 Mar 36.7 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
19 Mar after 37.3 °C 26 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
20 Mar after 37.4 °C 23 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
21 Mar after 38.2 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
22 Mar after 37.2 °C 24 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
23 Mar after 36.9 °C 30 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Mar after 38.2 °C 30 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
25 Mar after 38.2 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
26 Mar after 38.5 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
27 Mar after 39.0 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
28 Mar after 38.2 °C 20 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Mar 2020
After · 25 Mar 2020

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 · 96Every 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 10 March 2020 and 18 March 2020: 9 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 3,262 hectares (32.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Muñoz (3,282 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.4 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, class Extreme.
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.