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VE · Venezuela · →

Ortíz fire, 17 January 2016 Ortíz

Out · last detection 20 Jan 2016, 17:41 UTC

The fire started on 17 January 2016 in Ortíz, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,045 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 199th largest in Guárico since 2016 (of 421 with a page). Number 122 in Venezuela in 2016, of 238.

Burnt area
2,045ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
17 Jan 2016 – 20 Jan 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
17 Jan
2016
Heat detections
59
in a single hotspot: 37 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
653MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Jan 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Jan20 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

17181920

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
35km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Ortíz 23,755 inhabitants where it started
    2,058 ha reached on 17 Jan
    0.5 %

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)
17 Jan 38.1 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Jan 37.9 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
19 Jan 38.4 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 Jan 37.5 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
21 Jan after 38.0 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Jan after 37.7 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Jan after 36.8 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Jan after 37.1 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Jan after 38.0 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Jan after 37.1 °C 28 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
27 Jan after 37.5 °C 27 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Jan after 36.5 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
29 Jan after 37.6 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Jan after 37.5 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Jan 2016
After · 27 Jan 2016

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 · 59Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ortíz fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 January 2016 and 20 January 2016: 4 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 2,045 hectares (20.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ortíz (2,058 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.4 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.