Muñoz fire, 17 February 2026 Muñoz
The fire started on 17 February 2026 in Muñoz, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,501 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 17th largest in Apure since 2016 (of 919 with a page). Number 14 in Venezuela in 2026, of 396.
- Burnt area
- 9,501ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 16days
- 17 Feb 2026 – 4 Mar 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 17 Feb
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 221
- in a single hotspot: 82 MW
- Danger at start
- 37
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 2.6GW
- 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 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
81% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 375 ha in 2017, 2,520 ha in 2019, 3 ha in 2020, 8 ha in 2021, 3,157 ha in 2022, 2,489 ha in 2023, 2,470 ha in 2024, 3,864 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,726 ha that had burned before.
- 3,157 ha Muñoz fire, February 2022 4,729 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,955 ha Muñoz fire, April 2019 5,231 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,758 ha Muñoz fire, March 2023 2,029 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,095 ha Muñoz fire, January 2025 1,776 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,010 ha Muñoz fire, January 2024 6,130 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 670 ha Muñoz fire, March 2023 1,775 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 375 ha Muñoz fire, April 2017 2,066 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 183 ha Muñoz fire, January 2025 2,093 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
9,566 ha reached on 13 Feb1.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 Feb | 36.9 °C | 33 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 14 Feb | 35.5 °C | 39 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 15 Feb | 34.0 °C | 41 % | 30 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 27 |
| 16 Feb | 35.4 °C | 31 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 17 Feb | 35.9 °C | 31 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 18 Feb | 34.7 °C | 39 % | 30 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 28 |
| 19 Feb | 34.7 °C | 42 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 20 Feb | 33.6 °C | 44 % | 40 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 32 |
| 21 Feb | 35.9 °C | 33 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 22 Feb | 36.6 °C | 28 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 23 Feb | 34.8 °C | 39 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 24 Feb | 35.4 °C | 32 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 25 Feb | 36.5 °C | 34 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 26 Feb | 36.1 °C | 33 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 27 Feb | 35.5 °C | 34 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 28 Feb | 36.1 °C | 32 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 1 Mar | 35.9 °C | 34 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 2 Mar | 36.3 °C | 31 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 3 Mar | 37.2 °C | 31 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 4 Mar | 36.0 °C | 31 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 5 Mar after | 35.7 °C | 31 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 6 Mar after | 35.3 °C | 31 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 7 Mar after | 35.3 °C | 33 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 8 Mar after | 35.6 °C | 32 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 9 Mar after | 36.1 °C | 32 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 10 Mar after | 35.2 °C | 30 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 11 Mar after | 34.2 °C | 32 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 12 Mar after | 35.3 °C | 37 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 13 Mar after | 36.5 °C | 34 % | 36 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 38 |
| 14 Mar after | 35.8 °C | 38 % | 38 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very high 40 |
| 15 Mar after | 35.3 °C | 31 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
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 February 2026 the air beside the fire reached 91 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 40: 2.7 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 · 221Every 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 17 February 2026 and 4 March 2026: 16 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 9,501 hectares (95.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Muñoz (9,566 ha, 1.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, class Very 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.