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VE · Venezuela · →

Tinaco fire, April 2020 Tinaco, Pao de San Juan Bautista

Out · last detection 16 Apr 2020, 06:09 UTC

The fire started on 9 April 2020 in Tinaco, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,962 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 137th largest in Cojedes since 2016 (of 219 with a page). Number 228 in Venezuela in 2020, of 402.

Burnt area
1,962ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
9 Apr 2020 – 16 Apr 2020
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
9 Apr
2020
Heat detections
49
in a single hotspot: 44 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
479MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Apr 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Apr16 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

9111213141516

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
38km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.6 mm on 19 Apr.

This area had burned before

69% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,069 ha in 2016, 959 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,347 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Tinaco 32,564 inhabitants where it started
    1,227 ha reached on 8 Apr
    1.1 %
  2. Pao de San Juan Bautista 16,810 inhabitants
    747 ha reached on 11 Apr
    0.2 %

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)
9 Apr 36.7 °C 41 % 33 km/h 0.4 mm High 30
10 Apr 40.5 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Apr 40.5 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 40
12 Apr 41.2 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
13 Apr 41.1 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
14 Apr 40.9 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
15 Apr 39.9 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
16 Apr 38.1 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
17 Apr after 39.3 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
18 Apr after 33.2 °C 40 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
19 Apr after 34.5 °C 43 % 23 km/h 3.6 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Apr 2020
After · 23 Apr 2020

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 · 49Every 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 Tinaco fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 April 2020 and 16 April 2020: 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 1,962 hectares (19.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Tinaco (1,227 ha, 1.1 %); Pao de San Juan Bautista (747 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.2 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, class Extreme.
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
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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.