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VE · Venezuela · →

Ricaurte fire, February 2026 Ricaurte

Out · last detection 8 Mar 2026, 07:06 UTC

The fire started on 22 February 2026 in Ricaurte, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,364 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 33th largest in Cojedes since 2016 (of 219 with a page). Number 65 in Venezuela in 2026, of 396.

Burnt area
4,364ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
22 Feb 2026 – 8 Mar 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
22 Feb
2026
Heat detections
99
in a single hotspot: 212 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Mar 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Feb8 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

222425262728234568

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
43km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

60% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,545 ha in 2020, 2,286 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,635 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Ricaurte 12,657 inhabitants where it started
    4,389 ha reached on 22 Feb
    4.6 %

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)
22 Feb 38.0 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Feb 37.4 °C 32 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Feb 37.4 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Feb 38.7 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
26 Feb 37.7 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Feb 37.5 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Feb 38.2 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Mar 38.4 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
2 Mar 38.6 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
3 Mar 39.1 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
4 Mar 37.3 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Mar 38.3 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Mar 38.2 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Mar 37.2 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Mar 37.8 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Mar after 38.8 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 Mar after 38.0 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
11 Mar after 36.9 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Mar after 39.2 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Mar after 39.2 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Mar after 38.9 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Mar after 37.9 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Mar after 38.5 °C 30 % 46 km/h 0.4 mm Extreme 50
17 Mar after 38.1 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 46
18 Mar after 38.9 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Feb 2026
After · 15 Mar 2026

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 23 February 2026 the air beside the fire reached 33 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak33 µg/m³
Days over the guideline9 days
PM1054 µg/m³
Optical depth0.49
2021222324252627281234567891011
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 99Every 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 Ricaurte fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 February 2026 and 8 March 2026: 15 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 4,364 hectares (43.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ricaurte (4,389 ha, 4.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.1 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.