Muñoz fire, 22 February 2023 Muñoz
The fire started on 22 February 2023 in Muñoz, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,658 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 183th largest in Apure since 2016 (of 919 with a page). Number 33 in Venezuela in 2023, of 193.
- Burnt area
- 3,658ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 9days
- 22 Feb 2023 – 2 Mar 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 22 Feb
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 122
- in a single hotspot: 96 MW
- Danger at start
- 37
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 1.8GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.4 mm on 9 Mar.
This area had burned before
88% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 334 ha in 2017, 1,063 ha in 2019, 2,561 ha in 2020, 851 ha in 2021, 1,482 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,207 ha that had burned before.
- 1,397 ha Muñoz fire, May 2020 2,072 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 851 ha Muñoz fire, February 2021 1,624 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 686 ha Muñoz fire, April 2020 3,593 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 561 ha Muñoz fire, March 2019 2,570 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 362 ha Muñoz fire, January 2019 3,753 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 334 ha Muñoz fire, February 2017 5,824 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 140 ha Muñoz fire, March 2022 4,475 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 91 ha Muñoz fire, February 2022 2,359 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
3,683 ha reached on 22 Feb0.5 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 Feb | 34.7 °C | 31 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 23 Feb | 34.9 °C | 32 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 24 Feb | 35.1 °C | 30 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 25 Feb | 36.1 °C | 30 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 26 Feb | 35.4 °C | 32 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 27 Feb | 35.8 °C | 36 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 28 Feb | 36.2 °C | 40 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 1 Mar | 35.9 °C | 37 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 2 Mar | 35.2 °C | 39 % | 37 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 33 |
| 3 Mar after | 35.2 °C | 40 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 4 Mar after | 36.8 °C | 26 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 5 Mar after | 37.8 °C | 31 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 6 Mar after | 36.2 °C | 36 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 7 Mar after | 36.2 °C | 33 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 8 Mar after | 37.1 °C | 33 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 9 Mar after | 35.1 °C | 42 % | 32 km/h | 3.4 mm | Low 10 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 2 March 2023 the air beside the fire reached 124 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 67: 4.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 122Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Muñoz fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 February 2023 and 2 March 2023: 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 3,658 hectares (36.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Muñoz (3,683 ha, 0.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 42 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
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.