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VE · Venezuela · →

Ospino fire, 9 March 2016 Guanare, Ospino

Out · last detection 16 Mar 2016, 18:31 UTC

The fire started on 9 March 2016 in Ospino, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,372 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 9th largest in Portuguesa since 2016 (of 36 with a page). Number 47 in Venezuela in 2016, of 238.

Burnt area
3,372ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
9 Mar 2016 – 16 Mar 2016
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
9 Mar
2016
Heat detections
105
in a single hotspot: 33 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
460MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Mar 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Mar16 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

910111213141516

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
39km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.1 mm on 17 Mar.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Guanare 192,644 inhabitants
    2,316 ha reached on 6 Mar
    1.0 %
  2. Ospino 47,644 inhabitants where it started
    1,078 ha reached on 6 Mar
    0.6 %

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)
6 Mar 36.8 °C 33 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
7 Mar 37.6 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
8 Mar 37.3 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Mar 36.6 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Mar 37.9 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
11 Mar 34.4 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Mar 36.0 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Mar 35.8 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
14 Mar 36.0 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Mar 34.8 °C 43 % 25 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
16 Mar 34.0 °C 53 % 24 km/h 0.2 mm High 22
17 Mar after 34.4 °C 49 % 27 km/h 6.1 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Mar 2016
After · 23 Mar 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 · 105Every 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 Ospino fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 March 2016 and 16 March 2016: 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 3,372 hectares (33.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Guanare (2,316 ha, 1.0 %); Ospino (1,078 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.9 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 39 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.