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VE · Venezuela · –

Pedro Camejo fire, 17 February 2021 Pedro Camejo

Out · last detection 19 Feb 2021, 17:19 UTC

The fire started on 17 February 2021 in Pedro Camejo, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,508 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 281th largest in Apure since 2016 (of 761 with a page). Number 14 in Venezuela in 2021, of 47.

Burnt area
2,508ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
17 Feb 2021 – 19 Feb 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
17 Feb
2021
Heat detections
44
in a single hotspot: 85 MW
Danger at start
57
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
219MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Feb19 Feb
19 Feb 2021

How it evolved, day by day

17 Feb 2021 · 634 MW · 38 18 Feb 2021 · 16 MW · 5 19 Feb 2021 · 7 MW · 1
17 Feb 18 Feb 19 Feb

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
51km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 37 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

52% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 306 ha in 2016, 1,104 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,314 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.6% of the area of London (25 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
    2,521 ha reached on 17 Feb
    0.1 %

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)

Started with Extreme FWI: 14 % of the area in Venezuela Strong wind: 2.0 % of the area in Venezuela

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
17 Feb 34.1 °C 31 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
18 Feb 34.8 °C 23 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
19 Feb 33.8 °C 34 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
20 Feb after 35.3 °C 27 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
21 Feb after 35.8 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
22 Feb after 35.7 °C 34 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
23 Feb after 35.0 °C 37 % 45 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 50
24 Feb after 34.8 °C 40 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Feb after 36.3 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Feb after 35.2 °C 33 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
27 Feb after 34.4 °C 32 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
28 Feb after 34.6 °C 31 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
1 Mar after 35.4 °C 27 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 57.3, a minimum humidity of 31% and 37 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 19.

FWI at the start 57.3
Minimum humidity 31 %
Days without rain 37
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Rómulo Gallegos fire, February 2020
1,653 ha 8 days FWI 57.0 Min. humidity 31 % 94 km away, in 2020

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

What happened to them

6 days
median duration
2,304 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.0 mm
rain at the end (median; 11 of 19 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (2,508 ha against a median of 2,304 ha) and lasted 3 days, against 6 days.

In 8 of 19, 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 2.0 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
51km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 19 Feb, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 11 of 19, with a median of 2.0 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 · 10 Feb 2021
After · 26 Feb 2021

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 · 44Every 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 17 February 2021 to 19 February 2021 (3 days). The perimeter dates it from 17 February 2021 to 18 February 2021.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,508 hectares (25.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pedro Camejo (2,521 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, 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: 19. Their median duration was 6 days and their median area 2,304 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In 8 of 19, 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 2.0 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 18 February 2021 → 19 February 2021.

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 17 February 2021 to 18 February 2021. 44 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.