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VE · Venezuela · →

Pedraza fire, 17 March 2020 Pedraza

Out · last detection 31 Mar 2020, 06:09 UTC

The fire started on 17 March 2020 in Pedraza, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,873 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the largest fire in Barinas since 2016 (of 117 with a page). Number 15 in Venezuela in 2020, of 402.

Burnt area
7,873ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
17 Mar 2020 – 30 Mar 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
17 Mar
2020
Heat detections
297
in a single hotspot: 262 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Mar 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Mar30 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

171819202122232425262728293031

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
47km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 56 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.4 mm on 3 Apr.

This area had burned before

51% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,984 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Pedraza 6,568 inhabitants where it started
    7,921 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 37.8 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 Mar 37.6 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
15 Mar 38.2 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
16 Mar 39.3 °C 21 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Mar 37.9 °C 21 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Mar 36.7 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
19 Mar 37.7 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
20 Mar 37.4 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Mar 39.0 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
22 Mar 37.3 °C 24 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
23 Mar 37.0 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Mar 38.1 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 44
25 Mar 37.5 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Mar 38.5 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
27 Mar 39.3 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Mar 38.4 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Mar 37.4 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
30 Mar 38.6 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
31 Mar after 34.4 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
1 Apr after 37.0 °C 33 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
2 Apr after 34.7 °C 45 % 32 km/h 0.7 mm High 26
3 Apr after 34.4 °C 46 % 29 km/h 7.4 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Mar 2020
After · 6 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 · 297Every 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 17 March 2020 and 30 March 2020: 14 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 7,873 hectares (78.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pedraza (7,921 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.3 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, class Extreme.
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.

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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.