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VE · Venezuela · →

Muñoz fire, 9 January 2025 Muñoz

Out · last detection 10 Jan 2025, 05:33 UTC

The fire started on 9 January 2025 in Muñoz, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,093 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 502th largest in Apure since 2016 (of 919 with a page). Number 65 in Venezuela in 2025, of 139.

Burnt area
2,093ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
1day
9 Jan 2025 – 9 Jan 2025
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
9 Jan
2025
Heat detections
48
in a single hotspot: 61 MW
Danger at start
9
Low · FWI index
Energy released
896MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Jan 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Jan9 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

910

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
38km/h · peak gust
39%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 313 ha in 2019, 1,131 ha in 2020, 843 ha in 2021, 984 ha in 2022, 1,292 ha in 2023, 1,188 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,968 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Muñoz 27,542 inhabitants where it started
    2,108 ha reached on 9 Jan
    0.3 %

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)
6 Jan 33.7 °C 47 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm Low 9
7 Jan 33.8 °C 42 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
8 Jan 33.9 °C 43 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
9 Jan 34.1 °C 42 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
10 Jan after 34.2 °C 39 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
11 Jan after 34.0 °C 39 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
12 Jan after 34.0 °C 44 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
13 Jan after 34.9 °C 42 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
14 Jan after 35.2 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
15 Jan after 33.6 °C 40 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
16 Jan after 34.5 °C 40 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
17 Jan after 34.6 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
18 Jan after 34.8 °C 38 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
19 Jan after 35.0 °C 41 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
20 Jan after 35.4 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 25

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Jan 2025
After · 16 Jan 2025

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 · Copernicus

On 10 January 2025 the air beside the fire reached 48 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 27: 1.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak48 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1049 µg/m³
Optical depth0.33
78910111213
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 48Every 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 9 January 2025 and 9 January 2025: 1 day 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 2,093 hectares (20.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Muñoz (2,108 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 39 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 17, class Moderate.
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.