Muñoz fire, 2 March 2026 Muñoz
The fire started on 2 March 2026 in Muñoz, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,089 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 84th largest in Apure since 2016 (of 919 with a page). Number 48 in Venezuela in 2026, of 396.
- Burnt area
- 5,089ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 10days
- 2 Mar 2026 – 11 Mar 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 2 Mar
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 82
- in a single hotspot: 107 MW
- Danger at start
- 41
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 904MW
- 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 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
88% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 347 ha in 2016, 359 ha in 2017, 1,410 ha in 2018, 2,601 ha in 2019, 555 ha in 2020, 682 ha in 2021, 3,565 ha in 2022, 2,137 ha in 2023, 2,692 ha in 2024, 604 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,484 ha that had burned before.
- 1,416 ha Muñoz fire, February 2023 2,514 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,410 ha Muñoz fire, March 2018 3,201 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,362 ha Muñoz fire, March 2022 3,411 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,104 ha Muñoz fire, January 2022 1,869 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,099 ha Muñoz fire, February 2022 3,962 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,019 ha Muñoz fire, February 2024 2,267 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 688 ha Muñoz fire, February 2023 1,830 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 682 ha Muñoz fire, February 2021 1,685 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
5,124 ha reached on 1 Mar0.7 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Mar | 37.0 °C | 26 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 2 Mar | 37.6 °C | 23 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 3 Mar | 37.7 °C | 26 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 4 Mar | 37.0 °C | 25 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 5 Mar | 36.8 °C | 25 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 6 Mar | 36.4 °C | 26 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 7 Mar | 35.7 °C | 26 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 8 Mar | 37.1 °C | 24 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 9 Mar | 37.0 °C | 26 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 10 Mar | 36.6 °C | 25 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 11 Mar | 35.4 °C | 25 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 12 Mar after | 35.9 °C | 32 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 13 Mar after | 36.6 °C | 35 % | 39 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 40 |
| 14 Mar after | 36.5 °C | 33 % | 38 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 42 |
| 15 Mar after | 35.8 °C | 33 % | 45 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 44 |
| 16 Mar after | 36.4 °C | 35 % | 40 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very high 42 |
| 17 Mar after | 35.6 °C | 31 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 18 Mar after | 36.7 °C | 25 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 19 Mar after | 37.4 °C | 22 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 20 Mar after | 38.1 °C | 29 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 21 Mar after | 38.9 °C | 21 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
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 7 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 30 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 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 · 82Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 5,824 haMuñozFebruary 2017 · 6 days · 7 km away
- 6,256 haMuñoz6 January 2025 · 10 days · 26 km away
- 8,088 haAchaguas20 March 2020 · 12 days · 36 km away
- 6,721 haAchaguas16 March 2026 · 12 days · 37 km away
- 6,438 haMuñoz20 March 2020 · 11 days · 38 km away
- 37,402 haAchaguas22 February 2026 · 35 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Muñoz fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 March 2026 and 11 March 2026: 10 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 5,089 hectares (50.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Muñoz (5,124 ha, 0.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.