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VE · Venezuela · →

Nirgua fire, 18 March 2020 Nirgua

Out · last detection 26 Mar 2020, 17:08 UTC

The fire started on 18 March 2020 in Nirgua, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,095 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 4th largest in Yaracuy since 2016 (of 12 with a page). Number 195 in Venezuela in 2020, of 402.

Burnt area
2,095ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
18 Mar 2020 – 25 Mar 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
18 Mar
2020
Heat detections
68
in a single hotspot: 83 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
687MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Mar 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Mar25 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

18192021222526

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
54km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 23 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.9 mm on 3 Apr.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Nirgua 58,932 inhabitants where it started
    2,108 ha reached on 13 Mar
    1.1 %

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 Mar 32.9 °C 35 % 45 km/h 0.4 mm High 33
14 Mar 31.5 °C 31 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 Mar 31.6 °C 27 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Mar 31.6 °C 27 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
17 Mar 30.9 °C 34 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Mar 32.6 °C 22 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Mar 31.2 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
20 Mar 31.1 °C 27 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Mar 31.4 °C 27 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Mar 30.9 °C 30 % 46 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 39
23 Mar 31.1 °C 36 % 36 km/h 2.5 mm Moderate 14
24 Mar 31.5 °C 37 % 37 km/h 5.4 mm Low 6
25 Mar 30.3 °C 42 % 35 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 17
26 Mar after 30.5 °C 39 % 41 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 21
27 Mar after 32.6 °C 26 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Mar after 31.9 °C 25 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Mar after 31.9 °C 31 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Mar after 32.0 °C 30 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
31 Mar after 30.0 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
1 Apr after 31.4 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
2 Apr after 30.7 °C 37 % 41 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
3 Apr after 27.4 °C 60 % 37 km/h 2.9 mm Low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Mar 2020
After · 1 Apr 2020

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 68Every 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 Nirgua fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 March 2020 and 25 March 2020: 8 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 2,095 hectares (21.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Nirgua (2,108 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.9 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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
What do you think is wrong?

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.