Sotillo fire, April 2026 Sotillo
The fire started on 19 April 2026 in Sotillo, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,342 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 32th largest in Monagas since 2016 (of 165 with a page). Number 44 in Venezuela in 2026, of 396.
- Burnt area
- 5,342ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 11days
- 19 Apr 2026 – 29 Apr 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 19 Apr
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 112
- in a single hotspot: 170 MW
- Danger at start
- 14
- Moderate · FWI index
- Energy released
- 1.3GW
- 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 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 4 May.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,645 ha in 2018, 280 ha in 2020, 2,048 ha in 2023, 4,550 ha in 2024, 2,689 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,208 ha that had burned before.
- 3,654 ha Sotillo fire, March 2024 39,607 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,053 ha Sotillo fire, March 2025 6,362 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,045 ha Sotillo fire, August 2023 3,018 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,645 ha Sotillo fire, April 2018 2,833 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3 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
-
5,375 ha reached on 19 Apr3.6 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 Apr | 32.1 °C | 51 % | 32 km/h | 0.8 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 20 Apr | 33.3 °C | 46 % | 34 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 21 Apr | 34.4 °C | 36 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 22 Apr | 34.1 °C | 42 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 23 Apr | 34.0 °C | 38 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 24 Apr | 34.5 °C | 44 % | 31 km/h | 1.8 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 25 Apr | 32.9 °C | 50 % | 38 km/h | 6.6 mm | Very low 3 |
| 26 Apr | 29.7 °C | 69 % | 33 km/h | 12.9 mm | Very low 0 |
| 27 Apr | 31.1 °C | 61 % | 36 km/h | 1.4 mm | Very low 3 |
| 28 Apr | 31.2 °C | 55 % | 30 km/h | 0.4 mm | Low 7 |
| 29 Apr | 32.0 °C | 50 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 30 Apr after | 30.4 °C | 56 % | 33 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 11 |
| 1 May after | 31.2 °C | 54 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 2 May after | 31.5 °C | 55 % | 34 km/h | 0.7 mm | Moderate 11 |
| 3 May after | 31.0 °C | 53 % | 36 km/h | 0.6 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 4 May after | 31.4 °C | 57 % | 37 km/h | 1.1 mm | Low 10 |
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 19 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 112Every 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 19 April 2026 and 29 April 2026: 11 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 5,342 hectares (53.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Sotillo (5,375 ha, 3.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 36 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 23, class 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.