Sotillo fire, March 2024 Sotillo, Libertador, Uracoa
The fire started on 20 March 2024 in Sotillo, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 39,607 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 2th largest in Monagas since 2016 (of 165 with a page). Number 3 in Venezuela in 2024, of 482.
- Burnt area
- 39,607ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 8days
- 20 Mar 2024 – 27 Mar 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 20 Mar
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 1,314
- in a single hotspot: 184 MW
- Danger at start
- 40
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 11.4GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.7 mm on 31 Mar.
This area had burned before
17% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,790 ha in 2018, 12 ha in 2019, 128 ha in 2020, 990 ha in 2022, 4,283 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,584 ha that had burned before.
- 2,566 ha Sotillo fire, August 2023 3,018 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,790 ha Sotillo fire, April 2018 2,833 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,145 ha Libertador fire, March 2023 3,747 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 990 ha Libertador fire, April 2022 3,072 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 515 ha Sotillo fire, December 2023 1,795 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
28,043 ha reached on 14 Mar19 %
-
Libertador 45,274 inhabitants11,092 ha reached on 14 Mar3.3 %
-
Uracoa 9,625 inhabitants717 ha reached on 17 Mar0.4 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 Mar | 36.3 °C | 28 % | 46 km/h | 0.4 mm | Very high 40 |
| 14 Mar | 36.5 °C | 34 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 15 Mar | 35.8 °C | 38 % | 43 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 38 |
| 16 Mar | 36.0 °C | 38 % | 49 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very high 41 |
| 17 Mar | 35.9 °C | 40 % | 52 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 34 |
| 18 Mar | 35.8 °C | 38 % | 49 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 35 |
| 19 Mar | 35.6 °C | 37 % | 49 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 34 |
| 20 Mar | 35.9 °C | 30 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 21 Mar | 36.6 °C | 28 % | 45 km/h | 0.4 mm | Very high 42 |
| 22 Mar | 36.4 °C | 24 % | 39 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 42 |
| 23 Mar | 37.0 °C | 24 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 24 Mar | 36.8 °C | 28 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 25 Mar | 38.2 °C | 27 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 26 Mar | 39.0 °C | 25 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 27 Mar | 38.1 °C | 25 % | 39 km/h | 0.5 mm | Very high 42 |
| 28 Mar after | 37.1 °C | 29 % | 32 km/h | 0.4 mm | Very high 42 |
| 29 Mar after | 37.6 °C | 30 % | 45 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 48 |
| 30 Mar after | 37.5 °C | 31 % | 40 km/h | 1.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 31 Mar after | 35.6 °C | 39 % | 52 km/h | 6.7 mm | Moderate 16 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 24 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 83 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 28: 1.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 1,314Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Sotillo fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 March 2024 and 27 March 2024: 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 39,607 hectares (396.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Sotillo (28,043 ha, 19 %); Libertador (11,092 ha, 3.3 %); Uracoa (717 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.0 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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
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.