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VE · Venezuela · →

Tinaco fire, January 2024 Tinaco

Out · last detection 1 Feb 2024, 17:28 UTC

The fire started on 29 January 2024 in Tinaco, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,344 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 93th largest in Cojedes since 2016 (of 219 with a page). Number 208 in Venezuela in 2024, of 482.

Burnt area
2,344ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
29 Jan 2024 – 1 Feb 2024
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
29 Jan
2024
Heat detections
54
in a single hotspot: 190 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Feb 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Jan1 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

2930311

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
33km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 50 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.0 mm on 3 Feb.

This area had burned before

83% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 720 ha in 2016, 214 ha in 2018, 1,280 ha in 2021, 975 ha in 2022, 670 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,956 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Tinaco 32,564 inhabitants where it started
    2,360 ha reached on 28 Jan
    2.2 %

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)
29 Jan 37.9 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Jan 37.6 °C 31 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
31 Jan 38.5 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Feb 39.6 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
2 Feb after 37.2 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 Feb after 36.9 °C 36 % 33 km/h 4.0 mm Moderate 14

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Jan 2024
After · 8 Feb 2024

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 3 February 2024 the air beside the fire reached 44 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 30: 2.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak44 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM1058 µg/m³
Optical depth0.83
27282930311234
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 · 54Every 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 29 January 2024 and 1 February 2024: 4 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 2,344 hectares (23.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Tinaco (2,360 ha, 2.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.6 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 33 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.