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VE · Venezuela · –

Pedro Camejo fire, 11 January 2020 Pedro Camejo, Achaguas

Out · last detection 18 Jan 2020, 05:38 UTC

The fire started on 11 January 2020 in Pedro Camejo, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,167 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 377th largest in Apure since 2016 (of 761 with a page). Number 178 in Venezuela in 2020, of 401.

The power measured by the satellite is low (22.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
2,167ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
11 Jan 2020 – 18 Jan 2020
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
11 Jan
2020
Heat detections
60
in a single hotspot: 23 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
47MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Jan18 Jan
18 Jan 2020

How it evolved, day by day

11 Jan 2020 · 66 MW · 5 14 Jan 2020 · 56 MW · 10 15 Jan 2020 · 121 MW · 22 16 Jan 2020 · 32 MW · 17 17 Jan 2020 · 4 MW · 5 18 Jan 2020 · 1 MW · 1
11 Jan 15 Jan 17 Jan

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
48km/h · peak gust
34%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 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: 909 ha in 2016, 117 ha in 2018.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.4% of the area of London (22 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Pedro Camejo where it started
    2,133 ha reached on 11 Jan
    0.1 %
  2. Achaguas 28,966 inhabitants
    46 ha reached on 17 Jan
    0.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
11 Jan 34.2 °C 34 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
12 Jan 33.6 °C 37 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
13 Jan 33.6 °C 37 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
14 Jan 34.5 °C 39 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Jan 35.6 °C 39 % 43 km/h 1.6 mm Very high 40
16 Jan 35.0 °C 42 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
17 Jan 35.6 °C 41 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
18 Jan 36.3 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 38
19 Jan after 35.7 °C 39 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Jan after 36.0 °C 41 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Jan after 36.6 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Jan after 36.7 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Jan after 36.7 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Jan after 36.8 °C 29 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
25 Jan after 36.7 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
26 Jan after 37.7 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Jan after 38.1 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
28 Jan after 38.1 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 49.1, a minimum humidity of 34% and 13 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 36.

FWI at the start 49.1
Minimum humidity 34 %
Days without rain 13
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Pedro Camejo fire, February 2024
2,783 ha 3 days FWI 47.4 Min. humidity 34 % 40 km away, in 2024

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

5 days
median duration
2,813 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
3.2 mm
rain at the end (median; 14 of 36 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (2,167 ha against a median of 2,813 ha) and lasted 8 days, against 5 days.

In 22 of 36, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.2 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
48km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 18 Jan, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 14 of 36, with a median of 3.2 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Jan 2020
After · 25 Jan 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 · 60Every 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 Pedro Camejo fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 January 2020 to 18 January 2020 (8 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 January 2020 to 17 January 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,167 hectares (21.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Pedro Camejo (2,133 ha, 0.1 %); Achaguas (46 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 36. Their median duration was 5 days and their median area 2,813 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In 22 of 36, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.2 mm.

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 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 17 January 2020 → 18 January 2020.
  2. Start date: 14 January 2020 → 11 January 2020.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 14 January 2020 to 17 January 2020. 60 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.