Baures fire, 12 August 2024 Baures
The fire started on 12 August 2024 in Baures, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 32,085 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 21th largest in Beni since 2016 (of 902 with a page). Number 20 in Bolivia in 2024, of 295.
- Burnt area
- 32,085ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 22days
- 12 Aug 2024 – 2 Sept 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 12 Aug
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 1,862
- in a single hotspot: 313 MW
- Danger at start
- 23
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 16.7GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.1 mm on 5 Sept.
This area had burned before
55% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,835 ha in 2016, 183 ha in 2017, 49 ha in 2018, 8,117 ha in 2020, 8,617 ha in 2021, 1,216 ha in 2022, 5,296 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 17,647 ha that had burned before.
- 3,985 ha Baures fire, November 2023 26,403 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,052 ha Baures fire, September 2020 9,064 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,301 ha Baures fire, October 2021 4,951 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,286 ha Baures fire, September 2016 3,185 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 953 ha Magdalena fire, September 2022 35,295 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 852 ha Baures fire, September 2020 3,635 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 432 ha Baures fire, November 2023 11,317 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
32,298 ha1.8 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Aug | 27.1 °C | 30 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 13 Aug | 27.8 °C | 39 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 14 Aug | 31.4 °C | 35 % | 14 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 15 Aug | 33.7 °C | 38 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 16 Aug | 33.9 °C | 43 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 17 Aug | 35.1 °C | 39 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 18 Aug | 34.8 °C | 41 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 19 Aug | 34.7 °C | 44 % | 25 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 24 |
| 20 Aug | 35.0 °C | 43 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 21 Aug | 33.9 °C | 43 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 22 Aug | 34.5 °C | 42 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 23 Aug | 34.4 °C | 44 % | 30 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 27 |
| 24 Aug | 31.9 °C | 44 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 25 Aug | 25.6 °C | 38 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 26 Aug | 25.5 °C | 32 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 27 Aug | 30.7 °C | 33 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 28 Aug | 33.6 °C | 34 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 29 Aug | 35.7 °C | 34 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 30 Aug | 35.6 °C | 34 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 31 Aug | 35.7 °C | 33 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 1 Sept | 33.8 °C | 33 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 2 Sept | 34.0 °C | 35 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 3 Sept after | 36.1 °C | 31 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 4 Sept after | 36.2 °C | 38 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 5 Sept after | 33.5 °C | 32 % | 47 km/h | 4.1 mm | Moderate 20 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 27 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 697 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 368: 25 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 1,862Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 35,295 haMagdalena17 September 2022 · 21 days · 24 km away
- 30,494 haMagdalena28 September 2020 · 23 days · 24 km away
- 26,403 haBaures6 November 2023 · 14 days · 24 km away
- 25,480 haMagdalena19 September 2021 · 16 days · 28 km away
- 30,869 haBaures24 October 2023 · 27 days · 31 km away
- 17,787 haBaures25 September 2024 · 22 days · 32 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Baures fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 August 2024 and 2 September 2024: 22 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 32,085 hectares (320.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Baures (32,298 ha, 1.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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
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.