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VE · Venezuela · →

Sosa fire, 17 March 2023 Sosa

Out · last detection 24 Mar 2023, 06:11 UTC

The fire started on 17 March 2023 in Sosa, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,477 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 9th largest in Barinas since 2016 (of 117 with a page). Number 19 in Venezuela in 2023, of 193.

Burnt area
4,477ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
17 Mar 2023 – 24 Mar 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
17 Mar
2023
Heat detections
123
in a single hotspot: 43 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Mar 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Mar24 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

1718192021222324

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
47km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.2 mm on 1 Apr.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Sosa 24,142 inhabitants where it started
    4,508 ha reached on 16 Mar
    1.2 %

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)
16 Mar 37.9 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
17 Mar 36.7 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Mar 38.2 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Mar 38.2 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Mar 36.3 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Mar 36.2 °C 28 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Mar 35.6 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Mar 36.9 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Mar 38.2 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Mar after 36.4 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Mar after 35.3 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
27 Mar after 36.1 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Mar after 36.1 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Mar after 34.7 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Mar after 36.6 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
31 Mar after 36.7 °C 35 % 41 km/h 0.5 mm High 37
1 Apr after 36.1 °C 35 % 45 km/h 3.2 mm Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Mar 2023
After · 31 Mar 2023

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 26 March 2023 the air beside the fire reached 60 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 31: 2.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak60 µg/m³
Days over the guideline12 days
PM1087 µg/m³
Optical depth0.96
15161718192021222324252627
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 · 123Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Sosa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 March 2023 and 24 March 2023: 8 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 4,477 hectares (44.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sosa (4,508 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.2 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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.