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Apolo fire, November 2023 Apolo

Out · last detection 20 Nov 2023, 05:57 UTC

The fire started on 10 November 2023 in Apolo, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,529 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 58th largest in La Paz since 2016 (of 116 with a page). Number 118 in Bolivia in 2023, of 248.

Burnt area
5,529ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
10 Nov 2023 – 19 Nov 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
10 Nov
2023
Heat detections
186
in a single hotspot: 76 MW
Danger at start
4
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
1.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Nov 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Nov19 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

1011121314151617181920

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
57km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.3 mm on 20 Nov.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Apolo 18,386 inhabitants where it started
    5,566 ha
    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)
10 Nov 34.6 °C 44 % 35 km/h 0.4 mm Very low 4
11 Nov 37.2 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
12 Nov 36.7 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 16
13 Nov 35.6 °C 45 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
14 Nov 35.5 °C 46 % 36 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 16
15 Nov 36.3 °C 38 % 40 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 17
16 Nov 37.4 °C 37 % 48 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 19
17 Nov 38.3 °C 29 % 57 km/h 0.4 mm High 26
18 Nov 37.7 °C 33 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
19 Nov 33.7 °C 47 % 41 km/h 4.3 mm Very low 3
20 Nov after 30.0 °C 64 % 32 km/h 4.3 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Nov 2023
After · 26 Nov 2023

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 20 November 2023 the air beside the fire reached 680 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 296: 20 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak680 µg/m³
Days over the guideline10 days
PM10972 µg/m³
Optical depth8.56
8910111213141516171819202122
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 · 186Every 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 Bolivia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Apolo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 November 2023 and 19 November 2023: 10 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 5,529 hectares (55.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Apolo (5,566 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Bolivia (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: 119 · 110

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 119 · 110.

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 ADM3 (Public Domain). 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.