How long did the Muñoz fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 February 2026 and 8 March 2026: 11 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 5,574 hectares (55.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Muñoz (5,611 ha, 0.7 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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.

VE · Venezuela · 2026-02-26 → 2026-03-08

Muñoz fire, 26 February 2026 Muñoz

Out · last detection 5 Mar 2026, 17:27 UTC

The fire started on 26 February 2026 in Muñoz, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,574 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 67th largest in Apure since 2016 (of 919 with a page). Number 41 in Venezuela in 2026, of 396.

Burnt area: 5,574ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 11days; 26 Feb 2026 – 8 Mar 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 26 Feb; 2026
Heat detections: 121; in a single hotspot: 36 MW
Danger at start: 30; High · FWI index
Energy released: 945MW; sum of detected power

Play back 5 Mar 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Feb8 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

272812345

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

The weather it burned in

38°high

42km/h · peak gust

25%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

53% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,696 ha in 2023, 1,969 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,978 ha that had burned before.

1,696 ha Muñoz fire, March 2023 3,464 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Muñoz 27,542 inhabitants where it started

5,611 ha reached on 22 Feb

0.7 %

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	36.7 °C	29 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
23 Feb	35.2 °C	36 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
24 Feb	35.8 °C	32 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
25 Feb	36.6 °C	32 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
26 Feb	36.5 °C	31 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
27 Feb	36.3 °C	30 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
28 Feb	36.9 °C	25 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
1 Mar	36.5 °C	28 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
2 Mar	36.8 °C	26 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
3 Mar	37.7 °C	29 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
4 Mar	36.5 °C	30 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
5 Mar	36.2 °C	27 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
6 Mar	35.6 °C	28 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
7 Mar	35.8 °C	30 %	42 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 43
8 Mar	36.3 °C	28 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
9 Mar after	36.8 °C	28 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
10 Mar after	36.2 °C	26 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
11 Mar after	34.8 °C	27 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
12 Mar after	35.3 °C	33 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
13 Mar after	36.1 °C	37 %	38 km/h	0.3 mm	High 37
14 Mar after	36.1 °C	35 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
15 Mar after	35.6 °C	32 %	45 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 42
16 Mar after	36.5 °C	33 %	41 km/h	0.3 mm	Very high 40
17 Mar after	35.6 °C	31 %	44 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 41
18 Mar after	36.6 °C	26 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 19 Feb 2026

After · 15 Mar 2026

Before After

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 24 February 2026 the air beside the fire reached 40 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak40 µg/m³

Days over the guideline10 days

PM1054 µg/m³

Optical depth0.53

WHO 15

2021222324252627281234567891011

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 · 121Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Venezuela ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Muñoz fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 February 2026 and 8 March 2026: 11 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 5,574 hectares (55.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Muñoz (5,611 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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

Protección Civil ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned