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VE · Venezuela · →

Sosa fire, 14 March 2019 Sosa

Out · last detection 18 Mar 2019, 17:20 UTC

The fire started on 14 March 2019 in Sosa, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,501 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 116th largest in Barinas since 2016 (of 117 with a page). Number 293 in Venezuela in 2019, of 296.

Burnt area
1,501ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
14 Mar 2019 – 19 Mar 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
14 Mar
2019
Heat detections
24
in a single hotspot: 41 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
184MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Mar 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Mar19 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

1415161718

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
46km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 29 Mar.

This area had burned before

27% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 403 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Sosa 24,142 inhabitants where it started
    1,510 ha reached on 14 Mar
    0.4 %

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)
14 Mar 36.6 °C 36 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Mar 36.6 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Mar 37.0 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.8 mm High 33
17 Mar 37.6 °C 29 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
18 Mar 36.9 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 Mar 37.3 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 Mar after 38.9 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
21 Mar after 37.0 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Mar after 37.4 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Mar after 38.3 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Mar after 37.3 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Mar after 37.1 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Mar after 37.7 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
27 Mar after 37.5 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Mar after 36.9 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
29 Mar after 33.9 °C 42 % 23 km/h 2.1 mm Moderate 14

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Mar 2019
After · 26 Mar 2019

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 · 24Every 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 Sosa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 March 2019 and 19 March 2019: 6 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 1,501 hectares (15.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sosa (1,510 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % 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.

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.