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VE · Venezuela · →

Pedraza fire, 24 February 2020 Pedraza

Out · last detection 28 Feb 2020, 17:14 UTC

The fire started on 24 February 2020 in Pedraza, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,950 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 22th largest in Barinas since 2016 (of 117 with a page). Number 109 in Venezuela in 2020, of 402.

Burnt area
2,950ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
24 Feb 2020 – 28 Feb 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
24 Feb
2020
Heat detections
90
in a single hotspot: 103 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Feb 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Feb28 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

2425262728

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
40km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 38 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

47% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,484 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,377 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Pedraza 6,568 inhabitants where it started
    2,968 ha reached on 24 Feb
    0.4 %

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)
24 Feb 36.9 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Feb 37.5 °C 30 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
26 Feb 37.2 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
27 Feb 39.0 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Feb 37.1 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Feb after 37.6 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Mar after 36.7 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 Mar after 37.9 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Mar after 38.1 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Mar after 37.4 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Mar after 38.7 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Mar after 37.8 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Mar after 37.4 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Mar after 38.7 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Mar after 35.0 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 Mar after 36.2 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Mar after 36.5 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Mar after 35.6 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Mar after 37.8 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Mar after 37.6 °C 29 % 33 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 · 17 Feb 2020
After · 6 Mar 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 · 90Every 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 Pedraza fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 February 2020 and 28 February 2020: 5 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 2,950 hectares (29.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pedraza (2,968 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.0 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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
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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.