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VE · Venezuela · →

Tinaco fire, February 2024 Tinaco, Pao de San Juan Bautista

Out · last detection 4 Mar 2024, 17:27 UTC

The fire started on 28 February 2024 in Tinaco, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,863 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 148th largest in Cojedes since 2016 (of 219 with a page). Number 314 in Venezuela in 2024, of 482.

The power measured by the satellite is low (23.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
1,863ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
28 Feb 2024 – 3 Mar 2024
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
28 Feb
2024
Heat detections
51
in a single hotspot: 23 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
284MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Mar 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Feb3 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

2829134

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
48km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

73% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 807 ha in 2016, 669 ha in 2019, 654 ha in 2020, 1,143 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,368 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Tinaco 32,564 inhabitants where it started
    1,344 ha reached on 28 Feb
    1.2 %
  2. Pao de San Juan Bautista 16,810 inhabitants
    533 ha reached on 29 Feb
    0.1 %

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)
28 Feb 35.9 °C 24 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
29 Feb 35.8 °C 20 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Mar 36.4 °C 21 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
2 Mar 35.6 °C 26 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
3 Mar 36.2 °C 22 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
4 Mar after 36.6 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Mar after 37.4 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
6 Mar after 35.8 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Mar after 37.0 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Mar after 37.3 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Mar after 37.0 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Mar after 36.7 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
11 Mar after 37.8 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Mar after 38.3 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Mar after 38.7 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Feb 2024
After · 10 Mar 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 6 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 31 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak31 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1044 µg/m³
Optical depth0.66
26272829123456
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 · 51Every 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 28 February 2024 and 3 March 2024: 5 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 1,863 hectares (18.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Tinaco (1,344 ha, 1.2 %); Pao de San Juan Bautista (533 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.

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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.