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VE · Venezuela · →

Torres fire, February 2020 Torres, Baralt

Out · last detection 7 Mar 2020, 05:18 UTC

The fire started on 28 February 2020 in Torres, Venezuela, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,596 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

Number 354 in Venezuela in 2020, of 402.

The power measured by the satellite is low (22.1 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
1,596ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
28 Feb 2020 – 6 Mar 2020
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
28 Feb
2020
Heat detections
71
in a single hotspot: 22 MW
Danger at start
2
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
256MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Mar 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Feb6 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

28291234567

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
37km/h · peak gust
41%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 mm on 7 Mar.

This area had burned before

15% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 247 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Torres 185,275 inhabitants where it started
    896 ha reached on 23 Feb
    0.1 %
  2. Baralt
    710 ha reached on 4 Mar
    0.4 %

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 28.2 °C 49 % 34 km/h 0.9 mm Very low 2
29 Feb 28.1 °C 56 % 34 km/h 0.7 mm Very low 3
1 Mar 27.7 °C 57 % 31 km/h 1.1 mm Very low 2
2 Mar 28.4 °C 55 % 34 km/h 0.3 mm Very low 5
3 Mar 30.2 °C 47 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
4 Mar 30.5 °C 47 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
5 Mar 32.4 °C 41 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
6 Mar 30.8 °C 45 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
7 Mar after 29.3 °C 56 % 31 km/h 1.8 mm Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Feb 2020
After · 13 Mar 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 · 71Every 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 Torres fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 February 2020 and 6 March 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 1,596 hectares (16.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Torres (896 ha, 0.1 %); Baralt (710 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.4 °C, humidity dropped to 41 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 11, class Low.
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.