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VE · Venezuela · →

Muñoz fire, 10 February 2022 Muñoz

Out · last detection 26 Feb 2022, 17:46 UTC

The fire started on 10 February 2022 in Muñoz, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,729 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 101th largest in Apure since 2016 (of 919 with a page). Number 19 in Venezuela in 2022, of 205.

Burnt area
4,729ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
17days
10 Feb 2022 – 26 Feb 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
10 Feb
2022
Heat detections
143
in a single hotspot: 78 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Feb 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Feb26 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

1011121314161719202122242526

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
44km/h · peak gust
31%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 20.9 mm on 27 Feb.

This area had burned before

72% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,522 ha in 2017, 3,313 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,415 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Muñoz 27,542 inhabitants where it started
    4,761 ha reached on 10 Feb
    0.6 %

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 Feb 34.9 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
11 Feb 33.7 °C 43 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
12 Feb 35.0 °C 38 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
13 Feb 34.6 °C 36 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Feb 34.0 °C 39 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Feb 33.6 °C 38 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
16 Feb 34.1 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
17 Feb 34.8 °C 35 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Feb 33.8 °C 39 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
19 Feb 34.2 °C 36 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Feb 35.0 °C 32 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Feb 35.3 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Feb 35.5 °C 34 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Feb 35.0 °C 41 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
24 Feb 34.3 °C 41 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Feb 33.9 °C 42 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Feb 33.7 °C 47 % 35 km/h 0.8 mm High 23
27 Feb after 26.6 °C 75 % 29 km/h 20.9 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Feb 2022
After · 5 Mar 2022

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 · 143Every 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 February 2022 and 26 February 2022: 17 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 4,729 hectares (47.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Muñoz (4,761 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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.