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VE · Venezuela · Zulia

Wildfires in Catatumbo

Catatumbo, Venezuela, has had 17 large fires recorded by GWIS since 2016: 68,918 hectares burned inside its boundaries, 14% of its area. Fire danger today: low (FWI 10).

Only fires of 1,500 ha or more get an entry: smaller ones are not in the lists or the totals on this page.

Fire danger, today and the coming days

FWI computed from the Open-Meteo forecast
  1. Thu 12 Low 35° · 48 % · 28 km/h
  2. Fri 13 Low 36° · 44 % · 29 km/h
  3. Sat 14 Low 35° · 51 % · 26 km/h
  4. Sun 15 Very low 33° · 60 % · 25 km/h
  5. Mon 16 Very low 32° · 64 % · 23 km/h
  6. Tue 17 Very low 32° · 57 % · 25 km/h
  7. Wed 18 Very low 33° · 58 % · 22 km/h

Canadian Fire Weather Index, the same system Copernicus uses, computed by WorldFires from the weather forecast and two months of past weather for fuel state. It is an estimate per municipality, not an official warning: warnings are issued by each country’s emergency service. Put this widget on your website

Smoke today in Catatumbo: hourly forecast

The municipality and its fires

Since 2016

68,918
hectares burned
14 %
of its area
17
fires
4,872
km²

How many times has Catatumbo burned?

Catatumbo has burned 17 times since 2016, in 5 years: 2016, 2019, 2020, 2024 and 2025. The most recent: Catatumbo fire, September 2025, with 2,325 hectares inside the municipality. Together they add up to 68,918 hectares burned inside the municipality, but the distinct burned area is 63,033 hectares, 13 % of its surface: part of it burned more than once.

  1. 3× 16
  2.   17
  3.   18
  4. 2× 19
  5. 9× 20
  6.   21
  7.   22
  8.   23
  9. 2× 24
  10. 1× 25
  11.   26
17
fires
5
years with fire
68,918
cumulative ha
63,033
distinct ha

Fires larger than 1,500 hectares with a perimeter since 2016 that reached the municipality, even partly. Cumulative hectares add up every fire; the distinct area counts land that burned several times only once. Perimeters and boundaries overlaid by WorldFires.

Where it has burned most often in Venezuela

Fires that entered Catatumbo

  1. 2,325 ha Catatumbo fire, September 2025 where it started 0.5% of the municipality · 2,384 ha in total · 3 days
  2. 1,887 ha Catatumbo fire, March 2024 where it started 0.4% of the municipality · 1,872 ha in total · 9 days
  3. 8 ha Jesús María Semprum fire, March 2024 0.0% of the municipality · 4,443 ha in total · 25 days
  4. 1,647 ha Catatumbo fire, 24 May 2020 where it started 0.3% of the municipality · 2,294 ha in total · 3 days
  5. 3,546 ha Catatumbo fire, 11 May 2020 where it started 0.7% of the municipality · 3,521 ha in total · 11 days
  6. 1,606 ha Catatumbo fire, 9 May 2020 where it started 0.3% of the municipality · 1,594 ha in total · 13 days
  7. 3,271 ha Catatumbo fire, 5 May 2020 where it started 0.7% of the municipality · 3,252 ha in total · 16 days
  8. 3,490 ha Catatumbo fire, April 2020 where it started 0.7% of the municipality · 4,113 ha in total · 23 days
  9. 748 ha Jesús María Semprum fire, 22 March 2020 0.2% of the municipality · 1,750 ha in total · 7 days
  10. 28,083 ha Catatumbo fire, 13 March 2020 where it started 5.8% of the municipality · 27,868 ha in total · 30 days
  11. 4,645 ha Catatumbo fire, 11 March 2020 where it started 1.0% of the municipality · 5,638 ha in total · 28 days
  12. 1,874 ha Catatumbo fire, 1 March 2020 where it started 0.4% of the municipality · 1,859 ha in total · 9 days
  13. 253 ha Machiques de Perijá fire, 16 March 2019 0.0% of the municipality · 1,784 ha in total · 5 days
  14. 11 ha Machiques de Perijá fire, 12 February 2019 0.0% of the municipality · 2,335 ha in total · 10 days
  15. 1,547 ha Catatumbo fire, 20 March 2016 where it started 0.3% of the municipality · 1,692 ha in total · 13 days
  16. 5,851 ha Catatumbo fire, 5 March 2016 where it started 1.2% of the municipality · 5,811 ha in total · 29 days
  17. 8,127 ha Jesús María Semprum fire, February 2016 1.7% of the municipality · 21,429 ha in total · 33 days

Where this data comes from

Perimeters come from GWIS (Copernicus, CC BY 4.0), rebuilt from heat detections, and municipal boundaries from geoBoundaries/Efrain Porto Tapiquen Geografia, SIG y Estudios Ambientales (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing both. The forecast is from Open-Meteo (CC BY 4.0).

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