Nirgua fire, 12 March 2026 Nirgua
The fire started on 12 March 2026 in Nirgua, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,462 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the largest fire in Yaracuy since 2016 (of 12 with a page). Number 30 in Venezuela in 2026, of 396.
- Burnt area
- 6,462ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 17days
- 12 Mar 2026 – 28 Mar 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 12 Mar
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 182
- in a single hotspot: 57 MW
- Danger at start
- 31
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 1.3GW
- 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 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.7 mm on 29 Mar.
This area had burned before
75% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,061 ha in 2016, 572 ha in 2019, 3,133 ha in 2020, 718 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,876 ha that had burned before.
- 2,033 ha Nirgua fire, March 2016 2,011 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,015 ha Nirgua fire, March 2020 2,078 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 908 ha Nirgua fire, March 2020 4,959 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 481 ha Nirgua fire, March 2016 1,941 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
6,501 ha reached on 14 Mar3.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Mar | 35.0 °C | 36 % | 34 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 31 |
| 13 Mar | 34.5 °C | 36 % | 39 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 33 |
| 14 Mar | 34.7 °C | 36 % | 42 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 34 |
| 15 Mar | 35.8 °C | 27 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 16 Mar | 34.0 °C | 40 % | 35 km/h | 0.8 mm | High 24 |
| 17 Mar | 31.0 °C | 57 % | 38 km/h | 2.7 mm | Low 7 |
| 18 Mar | 34.8 °C | 33 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 19 Mar | 35.3 °C | 33 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 20 Mar | 34.8 °C | 35 % | 34 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 29 |
| 21 Mar | 35.4 °C | 30 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 22 Mar | 35.6 °C | 33 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 23 Mar | 36.4 °C | 28 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 24 Mar | 36.9 °C | 26 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 25 Mar | 36.7 °C | 29 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 26 Mar | 35.4 °C | 36 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 27 Mar | 35.6 °C | 33 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 28 Mar | 34.1 °C | 41 % | 26 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 25 |
| 29 Mar after | 33.7 °C | 45 % | 32 km/h | 3.7 mm | Low 8 |
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 23 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 47 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.5 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 · 182Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 4,959 haNirgua15 March 2020 · 10 days · 4 km away
- 4,509 haNirgua18 March 2026 · 10 days · 9 km away
- 2,713 haSan Carlos19 March 2016 · 11 days · 20 km away
- 11,200 haAnzoátegui13 March 2020 · 12 days · 22 km away
- 11,740 haSan Carlos13 March 2020 · 19 days · 23 km away
- 12,955 haSimón Planas13 March 2020 · 11 days · 25 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Nirgua fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 March 2026 and 28 March 2026: 17 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 6,462 hectares (64.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Nirgua (6,501 ha, 3.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.