Skip to content
worldfires
VE · Venezuela · –

Pedro Camejo fire, 7 March 2022 Pedro Camejo

Out · last detection 9 Mar 2022, 17:39 UTC

The fire started on 7 March 2022 in Pedro Camejo, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,092 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 58th largest in Apure since 2016 (of 761 with a page). Number 15 in Venezuela in 2022, of 205.

Burnt area
5,092ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
7 Mar 2022 – 9 Mar 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
7 Mar
2022
Heat detections
135
in a single hotspot: 32 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
278MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Mar9 Mar
9 Mar 2022

How it evolved, day by day

7 Mar 2022 · 371 MW · 36 8 Mar 2022 · 458 MW · 98 9 Mar 2022 · 5 MW · 1
7 Mar 8 Mar 9 Mar

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
46km/h · peak gust
35%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

42% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 596 ha in 2016, 265 ha in 2017, 810 ha in 2019, 562 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,124 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.2% of the area of London (51 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
    5,121 ha reached on 7 Mar
    0.2 %

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)
7 Mar 35.1 °C 35 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Mar 35.1 °C 36 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
9 Mar 34.9 °C 41 % 44 km/h 0.3 mm High 37
10 Mar after 34.4 °C 46 % 43 km/h 0.7 mm Very high 38
11 Mar after 34.8 °C 43 % 42 km/h 0.6 mm High 30
12 Mar after 36.1 °C 40 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
13 Mar after 35.2 °C 40 % 39 km/h 0.4 mm High 36
14 Mar after 32.3 °C 46 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
15 Mar after 35.2 °C 37 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Mar after 33.9 °C 47 % 46 km/h 0.7 mm Very high 41
17 Mar after 35.3 °C 41 % 45 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 38
18 Mar after 35.3 °C 35 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Mar after 35.2 °C 37 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 38.7, a minimum humidity of 35% and 6 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 15.

FWI at the start 38.7
Minimum humidity 35 %
Days without rain 6
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Rómulo Gallegos fire, February 2017
2,448 ha 9 days FWI 38.8 Min. humidity 35 % 24 km away, in 2017

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

What happened to them

4 days
median duration
2,322 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
1.6 mm
rain at the end (median; 9 of 15 had it)

It was 2.2 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 3 days, against 4 days.

Only 2 of its 15 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 6 of 15, 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 1.6 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
46km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 9 Mar, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 9 of 15, with a median of 1.6 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 · 28 Feb 2022
After · 16 Mar 2022

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 · 135Every 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?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 March 2022 and 9 March 2022: 3 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 5,092 hectares (50.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pedro Camejo (5,121 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.1 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.
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: 15. Their median duration was 4 days and their median area 2,322 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 2 of its 15 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 6 of 15, 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 1.6 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 135 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.