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VE · Venezuela · →

Tinaco fire, February 2021 Tinaco

Out · last detection 18 Feb 2021, 17:39 UTC

The fire started on 17 February 2021 in Tinaco, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,641 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 186th largest in Cojedes since 2016 (of 219 with a page). Number 34 in Venezuela in 2021, of 47.

Burnt area
1,641ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
1day
17 Feb 2021 – 17 Feb 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
17 Feb
2021
Heat detections
33
in a single hotspot: 81 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
548MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Feb 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Feb17 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

1718

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
36km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 37 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

30% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 387 ha in 2016, 110 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Tinaco 32,564 inhabitants where it started
    1,652 ha reached on 17 Feb
    1.5 %

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)
17 Feb 35.8 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Feb after 36.3 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Feb after 34.2 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Feb after 35.2 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
21 Feb after 37.0 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Feb after 38.4 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Feb after 36.6 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 41
24 Feb after 35.5 °C 32 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
25 Feb after 37.8 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.6 mm High 36
26 Feb after 37.1 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
27 Feb after 36.7 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Feb 2021
After · 24 Feb 2021

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 · 33Every 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 17 February 2021 and 17 February 2021: 1 day 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 1,641 hectares (16.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Tinaco (1,652 ha, 1.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.