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Muñoz fire, 24 March 2022 Muñoz

Out · last detection 27 Mar 2022, 18:42 UTC

The fire started on 24 March 2022 in Muñoz, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,561 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 840th largest in Apure since 2016 (of 919 with a page). Number 192 in Venezuela in 2022, of 205.

Burnt area
1,561ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
24 Mar 2022 – 26 Mar 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
24 Mar
2022
Heat detections
50
in a single hotspot: 66 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
654MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Mar 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Mar26 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

24252627

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
34%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.0 mm on 29 Mar.

This area had burned before

82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 710 ha in 2016, 490 ha in 2019, 412 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,276 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Muñoz 27,542 inhabitants where it started
    1,570 ha reached on 24 Mar
    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)
24 Mar 36.1 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
25 Mar 36.1 °C 39 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Mar 36.4 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
27 Mar after 36.5 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Mar after 34.8 °C 39 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Mar after 34.7 °C 41 % 32 km/h 2.0 mm Moderate 14

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Mar 2022
After · 2 Apr 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 · 50Every 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 24 March 2022 and 26 March 2022: 3 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 1,561 hectares (15.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Muñoz (1,570 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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.

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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.