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Muñoz fire, 15 March 2020 Muñoz

Out · last detection 21 Mar 2020, 18:42 UTC

The fire started on 15 March 2020 in Muñoz, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,245 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 223th largest in Apure since 2016 (of 919 with a page). Number 94 in Venezuela in 2020, of 402.

Burnt area
3,245ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
15 Mar 2020 – 20 Mar 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
15 Mar
2020
Heat detections
112
in a single hotspot: 62 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
191MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

21 Mar 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Mar20 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

15 Mar 2020 · 4 MW · 3 16 Mar 2020 · 177 MW · 14 17 Mar 2020 · 651 MW · 59 18 Mar 2020 · 293 MW · 20 20 Mar 2020 · 4 MW · 3 21 Mar 2020 · 14 MW · 4
15 Mar 16 Mar 17 Mar 18 Mar 20 Mar 21 Mar

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
49km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 55 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

36% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,167 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Muñoz 27,542 inhabitants where it started
    3,265 ha reached on 11 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)
11 Mar 38.0 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Mar 37.1 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Mar 39.3 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Mar 38.2 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Mar 37.8 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Mar 38.6 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Mar 37.8 °C 24 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
18 Mar 37.2 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
19 Mar 37.5 °C 26 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
20 Mar 37.7 °C 22 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
21 Mar after 38.4 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
22 Mar after 37.7 °C 24 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
23 Mar after 37.3 °C 28 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
24 Mar after 38.3 °C 30 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
25 Mar after 38.8 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
26 Mar after 38.8 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Mar after 39.1 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
28 Mar after 38.4 °C 20 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
29 Mar after 37.6 °C 28 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
30 Mar after 38.5 °C 30 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
31 Mar after 34.1 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.9 mm High 28
1 Apr after 37.1 °C 33 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Mar 2020
After · 27 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 · 112Every 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 15 March 2020 and 20 March 2020: 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 3,245 hectares (32.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Muñoz (3,265 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.3 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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.

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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.