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Raúl Leoni fire, 14 March 2016 Raúl Leoni

Out · last detection 23 Mar 2016, 17:58 UTC

The fire started on 14 March 2016 in Raúl Leoni, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,314 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 26th largest in Bolívar since 2016 (of 193 with a page). Number 33 in Venezuela in 2016, of 238.

Burnt area
4,314ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
14 Mar 2016 – 23 Mar 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
14 Mar
2016
Heat detections
206
in a single hotspot: 58 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Mar 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Mar23 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

1415171920212223

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
53km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 19.1 mm on 31 Mar.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Raúl Leoni 40,927 inhabitants where it started
    4,351 ha reached on 10 Mar
    0.1 %

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)
10 Mar 34.6 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Mar 35.5 °C 35 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Mar 32.7 °C 41 % 38 km/h 0.4 mm High 33
13 Mar 34.0 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Mar 35.6 °C 42 % 39 km/h 0.4 mm High 33
15 Mar 35.3 °C 45 % 40 km/h 1.8 mm Moderate 18
16 Mar 34.4 °C 46 % 34 km/h 1.4 mm Moderate 17
17 Mar 33.8 °C 39 % 33 km/h 0.7 mm High 24
18 Mar 35.4 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Mar 37.1 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
20 Mar 36.4 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Mar 36.0 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Mar 36.7 °C 27 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Mar 36.1 °C 28 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Mar after 33.6 °C 42 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
25 Mar after 31.9 °C 41 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
26 Mar after 35.1 °C 31 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
27 Mar after 32.8 °C 42 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
28 Mar after 32.9 °C 43 % 44 km/h 0.3 mm High 33
29 Mar after 36.4 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Mar after 35.4 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.8 mm High 32
31 Mar after 27.3 °C 67 % 29 km/h 19.1 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Mar 2016
After · 30 Mar 2016

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 · 206Every 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 Raúl Leoni fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 March 2016 and 23 March 2016: 10 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 4,314 hectares (43.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Raúl Leoni (4,351 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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
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.

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.