es 
The conversation online about wildfires in the country has two nuances, on the one hand, the concerned scientific community and on the other hand, the officialism that shouts that this is the fault of “fascism”.
The wildfires in Caracas on April 8 and 9, 2024, set off alarms about a problem that goes far beyond the borders of the Venezuelan capital, but that took on greater media relevance when they were generated in the Waraira Repano National Park.
From that moment on, the conversation online about the forest fires increased and also the reports about the causes of the hot spots and fires that reached Caracas, but which had already been registered in the country for months.
The problem is complex: while the scientific community warns about this and associates it with factors such as global warming and the El Niño phenomenon, conspiracy theories that speak of simultaneous arson and respond to a “fascist strategy” are heard from the government.
Venezuela and a map on fire
Days before the fires reached Caracas, a satellite image from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) warned about the problem of forest fires in Venezuela. NASA’s Earth Observatory Spectroradiometer (Modis) sensors reported by March 29 more than 11 thousand hot spots and fires during the third month of the year and more than 9 thousand documented between January and February. Thus, this March is considered by the Department of Hydrometeorological Engineering of the Central University of Venezuela as the month with the highest number of hot spots since 2003.
A Modis report notes that Venezuela’s dry season generally runs from December to March with heavy rains returning in April and May, and that the country’s fire season generally follows the same pattern: with the number of fires observed by satellites tending to increase in January, peaking in March and decreasing in May. However, for the 2024 fire season something changed.
Fascist fires
The government’s response to the wildfires in Venezuela and the NASA report was simple: look for culprits outside and generate a matrix of opinion about fascist plans to ignite the country.
The governor of Carabobo, Rafael Lacava, and the Minister of Ecosocialism, Josué Lorca, also aligned themselves with Maduro’s position.
Lacava, through his Instagram account, showed the map published by NASA along with a message indicating that these fires “were arson”. “We are behind these criminals who generate these types of scenarios and I repeat, when we catch them we will take away the desire to continue setting fires,” he wrote in the post on the popular social network.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Ecosocialism, Josué Lorca, stated that they did not rule out that the wildfires in Warairo Repano were arson. He even gave a figure of 16 citizens arrested for this cause.
What is being said in networks: officialism vs. civil society
In the context of the forest fires, ProBox conducted a network search on the conversation around this issue, as well as the official and civil society narratives.
Through the keyword search, 2,563 mentions were obtained between March 13 and April 14, highlighting April 9 as the peak of this conversation with 329 mentions registered, being precisely this date when the wildfires were concentrated in the middle of the Venezuelan capital.
The conversation mainly took place on Facebook with 47.6% of the mentions recorded (1,220 mentions), followed by Instagram with 34.26% of the mentions recorded (878 mentions), then X with 17.48% of the mentions recorded (448 mentions), and finally TikTok with 0.66% of the mentions recorded (17 mentions).
While the official discourse in networks generated 614 mentions between March 15 and April 14, with April 11 being the day with the most mentions registered (86 mentions), civil society generated 575 mentions between March 14 and April 14, with a boost in the conversation on March 31 with 78 mentions.
The dates of impulse of the different narratives converge with the main focus of the cause that each one gives to the phenomenon of wildfires. The peak of the civil society conversation is generated after the NASA report, while in the case of the government, it arises after the fires in Caracas and the denunciations by Minister Lorca of the alleged coordinated plans to generate simultaneous fires.
On the other hand, while the main accounts that drove the civil society conversation were from media outlets that shared scientific information, the accounts that drove the officialist narrative are related to media outlets linked to the government or proxy media that published statements about the alleged responsibility of third parties in the generation of fire.
Among the accounts that drove the civil society conversation was the Runrunes account on X, with 12 mentions that generated 28,670,100 impressions, followed by the VPI TV account on Facebook, through 9 mentions that generated 937,314 impressions, and finally the Contrapunto account on X, through 8 mentions that generated 894,928 impressions.
On the side of the ruling party, there are the accounts of El Informador Venezuela on Facebook with 8 mentions that generated 204,184 impressions. In second place is El Cooperante on X with 7 mentions generating 3,116,666 impressions and in third place is Agencia Venezuela News on X which also made 7 mentions generating 249,767 impressions.
Beyond Caracas, the Amazon is in danger
On March 26, an image acquired by Modis on the Nasa satellite shows several large, smoky fires burning south of the Orinoco River on March 26, 2024.
Data from NASA’s SERVIR Amazon Fire Dashboard indicates that there have been several large understory wildfires in the region in March. Canaima National Park is one of the most affected by fire.
The government’s silence about what is happening in the Venezuelan Amazon leads to little being said about the subject.
A report by El Estímulo states that to date the number of fires in Canaima National Park, their causes, the status of the active outbreaks, the extent of the affected area, and details on the efforts to combat them are unknown. Only a few images of the flames captured by private individuals made a small part of the country aware that the Auyantepuy, the mountain that houses the Angel Falls, is burning.
Meanwhile, the officialist impulse online is to continue blaming others for the fires in their own house.
