How long did the Bolivia fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 May 2025 and 21 May 2025: 6 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 1,598 hectares (16.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Bolivia (1,607 ha, 1.7 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 32.8 °C, humidity dropped to 55 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 13, class Moderate.

Where does this data come from?

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

CU · Cuba · 2025-05-16 → 2025-05-21

Bolivia fire, May 2025 Bolivia

Out · last detection 20 May 2025, 17:45 UTC

The fire started on 16 May 2025 in Bolivia, Cuba, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,598 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 7th largest in Ciego de Ávila since 2016 (of 32 with a page). Number 7 in Cuba in 2025, of 27.

The power measured by the satellite is low (20.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 1,598ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 6days; 16 May 2025 – 21 May 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 16 May; 2025
Heat detections: 68; in a single hotspot: 20 MW
Danger at start: 10; Low · FWI index
Energy released: 511MW; sum of detected power

Play back 20 May 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 May21 May

How it evolved, day by day

1617181920

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

The weather it burned in

33°high

44km/h · peak gust

55%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 31 May.

This area had burned before

50% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 802 ha in 2020.

802 ha Bolivia fire, April 2020 2,369 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Bolivia where it started

1,607 ha reached on 16 May

1.7 %

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)
16 May	31.0 °C	64 %	42 km/h	0.4 mm	Low 10
17 May	30.2 °C	59 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
18 May	30.6 °C	58 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
19 May	31.0 °C	55 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
20 May	31.7 °C	56 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
21 May	32.8 °C	58 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
22 May after	32.1 °C	52 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
23 May after	32.5 °C	56 %	36 km/h	0.3 mm	Moderate 15
24 May after	31.6 °C	63 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
25 May after	32.5 °C	57 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
26 May after	32.8 °C	58 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
27 May after	33.1 °C	54 %	43 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 18
28 May after	32.8 °C	59 %	44 km/h	0.8 mm	Moderate 15
29 May after	32.2 °C	55 %	40 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 17
30 May after	33.2 °C	52 %	33 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 18
31 May after	33.3 °C	55 %	25 km/h	1.6 mm	Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 9 May 2025

After · 28 May 2025

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 31 May 2025 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak18 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1020 µg/m³

Optical depth0.37

WHO 15

141516171819202122232425262728293031

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 · 68Every 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 Cuba ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Bolivia fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 May 2025 and 21 May 2025: 6 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 1,598 hectares (16.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Bolivia (1,607 ha, 1.7 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 32.8 °C, humidity dropped to 55 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 13, class Moderate.
Where does this data come from?: From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Cuba (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: 105

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.

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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?

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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 105.

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 ADM2 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). 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