How long did the Bokod fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 March 2024 and 19 April 2024: 23 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 4,575 hectares (45.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Bokod (4,600 ha, 12 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 27.7 °C, humidity dropped to 48 % and gusts hit 28 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 7, class Low.

Where does this data come from?

From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Philippines (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

PH · Philippines · 2024-03-28 → 2024-04-19

Bokod fire, March 2024 Bokod

Out · last detection 20 Apr 2024, 05:58 UTC

The fire started on 28 March 2024 in Bokod, Philippines, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,575 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2th largest in CAR since 2016 (of 55 with a page). The largest in Philippines in 2024, of 18.

Burnt area: 4,575ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 23days; 28 Mar 2024 – 19 Apr 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 28 Mar; 2024
Heat detections: 225; in a single hotspot: 75 MW
Danger at start: 0; Very low · FWI index
Energy released: 1.8GW; sum of detected power

Play back 20 Apr 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Mar19 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

28311234568911121314151617181920

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

The weather it burned in

28°high

28km/h · peak gust

48%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.0 mm on 24 Apr.

This area had burned before

27% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 296 ha in 2018, 629 ha in 2019, 71 ha in 2020, 384 ha in 2021, 16 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,213 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Bokod where it started

4,600 ha

12 %

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 Mar	24.8 °C	70 %	24 km/h	6.1 mm	Very low 0
29 Mar	25.4 °C	68 %	23 km/h	16.8 mm	Very low 0
30 Mar	25.0 °C	70 %	26 km/h	2.3 mm	Very low 0
31 Mar	25.1 °C	61 %	24 km/h	0.9 mm	Very low 0
1 Apr	25.8 °C	58 %	24 km/h	0.2 mm	Very low 0
2 Apr	26.8 °C	51 %	24 km/h	0.1 mm	Very low 2
3 Apr	26.5 °C	51 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 4
4 Apr	25.8 °C	57 %	24 km/h	1.1 mm	Very low 2
5 Apr	26.5 °C	49 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 4
6 Apr	24.9 °C	54 %	24 km/h	0.8 mm	Very low 3
7 Apr	26.4 °C	53 %	27 km/h	0.2 mm	Very low 5
8 Apr	24.8 °C	63 %	23 km/h	2.4 mm	Very low 1
9 Apr	24.4 °C	65 %	22 km/h	1.7 mm	Very low 1
10 Apr	24.6 °C	66 %	26 km/h	4.8 mm	Very low 0
11 Apr	24.8 °C	63 %	25 km/h	1.0 mm	Very low 1
12 Apr	26.0 °C	56 %	26 km/h	0.1 mm	Very low 2
13 Apr	27.5 °C	48 %	28 km/h	0.2 mm	Very low 4
14 Apr	27.7 °C	50 %	27 km/h	1.3 mm	Very low 3
15 Apr	26.7 °C	52 %	23 km/h	0.3 mm	Very low 5
16 Apr	26.9 °C	52 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
17 Apr	26.7 °C	48 %	24 km/h	0.3 mm	Low 7
18 Apr	24.1 °C	71 %	25 km/h	3.1 mm	Very low 1
19 Apr	26.2 °C	57 %	26 km/h	1.3 mm	Very low 1
20 Apr after	28.1 °C	44 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 5
21 Apr after	28.1 °C	45 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 8
22 Apr after	28.4 °C	42 %	33 km/h	0.1 mm	Low 11
23 Apr after	27.8 °C	53 %	29 km/h	0.8 mm	Low 7
24 Apr after	25.9 °C	67 %	28 km/h	11.0 mm	Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 21 Mar 2024

After · 26 Apr 2024

Before After

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 17 April 2024 the air beside the fire reached 31 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 21: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak31 µg/m³

Days over the guideline3 days

PM1045 µg/m³

Optical depth0.72

WHO 15

26272829303112345678910111213141516171819202122

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 · 225Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Philippines ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Bokod fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 March 2024 and 19 April 2024: 23 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 4,575 hectares (45.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Bokod (4,600 ha, 12 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 27.7 °C, humidity dropped to 48 % and gusts hit 28 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 7, class Low.
Where does this data come from?: From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Philippines (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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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 ADM3 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). 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.

Where it burned