Muñoz fire, 5 January 2026 Muñoz
The fire started on 5 January 2026 in Muñoz, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,094 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 146th largest in Apure since 2016 (of 919 with a page). Number 73 in Venezuela in 2026, of 396.
- Burnt area
- 4,094ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 13days
- 5 Jan 2026 – 17 Jan 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 5 Jan
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 48
- in a single hotspot: 118 MW
- Danger at start
- 16
- Moderate · FWI index
- Energy released
- 672MW
- 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 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 26 Jan.
This area had burned before
99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 825 ha in 2018, 3,337 ha in 2019, 2,258 ha in 2020, 451 ha in 2021, 1,492 ha in 2022, 1,193 ha in 2023, 1,087 ha in 2024, 1,702 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,052 ha that had burned before.
- 1,300 ha Muñoz fire, January 2019 2,218 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,225 ha Muñoz fire, February 2020 2,644 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,032 ha Muñoz fire, January 2022 1,604 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 805 ha Muñoz fire, January 2020 1,623 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 741 ha Muñoz fire, March 2019 1,703 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 692 ha Muñoz fire, January 2025 6,256 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 604 ha Muñoz fire, January 2023 2,259 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 519 ha Muñoz fire, January 2025 1,592 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
4,123 ha reached on 5 Jan0.5 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 Jan | 35.7 °C | 40 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 6 Jan | 34.9 °C | 40 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 7 Jan | 33.5 °C | 46 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 8 Jan | 34.0 °C | 37 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 21 |
| 9 Jan | 35.5 °C | 32 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 10 Jan | 34.3 °C | 41 % | 43 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 24 |
| 11 Jan | 33.6 °C | 42 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 12 Jan | 34.5 °C | 35 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 13 Jan | 33.2 °C | 46 % | 31 km/h | 0.7 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 14 Jan | 33.3 °C | 45 % | 34 km/h | 0.9 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 15 Jan | 33.6 °C | 45 % | 26 km/h | 2.3 mm | Low 8 |
| 16 Jan | 35.6 °C | 40 % | 35 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 17 Jan | 35.1 °C | 38 % | 38 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 22 |
| 18 Jan after | 35.0 °C | 37 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 19 Jan after | 36.2 °C | 35 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 20 Jan after | 34.6 °C | 41 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 21 Jan after | 35.6 °C | 27 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 22 Jan after | 35.4 °C | 33 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 23 Jan after | 36.1 °C | 35 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 24 Jan after | 35.4 °C | 34 % | 36 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 31 |
| 25 Jan after | 33.9 °C | 44 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 26 Jan after | 35.2 °C | 41 % | 34 km/h | 1.2 mm | Moderate 19 |
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 15 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 21 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 48Every 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 5 January 2026 and 17 January 2026: 13 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 4,094 hectares (40.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Muñoz (4,123 ha, 0.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, 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.