Burned area
satellite only6,984ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 16 Jul 2018 – 3 Aug 2018
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
BO · Bolivia · –
Charagua fire, July 2018 Charagua, San José
Out · last detection 3 Aug 2018, 18:09 UTC
The fire started on 16 July 2018 in Charagua, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,984 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 292th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 785 with a page). Number 17 in Bolivia in 2018, of 80.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-11-15matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only19days
16 Jul 2018 to 3 Aug 2018: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 3 Aug 2018, 18:09 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only16 Jul 2018
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 16 Jul 2018
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only269
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 315 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 16 Jul 2018 – 3 Aug 2018
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only5,150MW
Total radiative power on 28 July 2018; hotspots that day: 105.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 28 Jul 2018
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model28.6FWI · high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 33.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 16 Jul 2018, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model33.5°C · 35% RH
High of 33.5 °C and minimum humidity of 35% on 17 July 2018; gusts of 60 km/h on 19 July 2018.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 16 Jul 2018 – 3 Aug 2018
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
logName: San José → Charagua.
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
What was saved on 15 November 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 6,984 ha
- Dates
- 16 Jul 2018 – 3 Aug 2018
- Name
- Charagua
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/charagua-2018-07?v=2026-11-15A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire charagua-2018-07.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-07-16 | 1 | 2 | 32.3 | 21.8 | 46 | 17.6 | 54.7 | 0.1 | 28.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-07-17 | 0 | 0 | 33.5 | 21.2 | 35 | 16.9 | 43.2 | 0 | 28.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-07-18 | 1 | 7 | 33.5 | 20.9 | 34 | 22 | 52.2 | 0 | 36 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-07-19 | 3 | 17 | 33.3 | 21.5 | 31 | 26 | 59.8 | 0 | 48.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2018-07-20 | 3 | 5 | 27.9 | 11.8 | 44 | 23.4 | 52.6 | 0 | 30.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-07-21 | 0 | 0 | 20.1 | 11.9 | 41 | 20.7 | 45.4 | 0 | 27.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-07-22 | 7 | 599 | 30.2 | 12.7 | 36 | 22.3 | 49.7 | 0 | 32.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-07-23 | 2 | 7 | 24.2 | 14.2 | 43 | 18.9 | 44.6 | 0 | 32.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-07-24 | 0 | 0 | 21.9 | 11.6 | 43 | 18.5 | 40.7 | 0 | 25.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-07-25 | 5 | 13 | 24.3 | 10.7 | 39 | 14.8 | 30.6 | 0 | 23.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-07-26 | 7 | 24 | 24.4 | 11.1 | 40 | 16.3 | 33.1 | 0 | 23.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-07-27 | 14 | 99 | 30 | 10.9 | 35 | 18 | 41.8 | 0 | 26.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-07-28 | 105 | 5,150 | 32 | 18.4 | 29 | 21 | 52.6 | 0 | 38.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2018-07-29 | 30 | 122 | 27 | 15.1 | 43 | 16.1 | 34.9 | 0 | 24.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-07-30 | 29 | 629 | 30.3 | 15.3 | 36 | 17.2 | 44.6 | 0.3 | 26.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-07-31 | 31 | 293 | 25.3 | 16.2 | 38 | 16.9 | 37.8 | 0.2 | 30 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-08-01 | 22 | 923 | 27.9 | 16.3 | 39 | 13.7 | 28.8 | 0 | 22.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-08-02 | 0 | 0 | 26.8 | 17.6 | 40 | 12.8 | 28.8 | 0.3 | 25.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-08-03 | 9 | 105 | 29.9 | 15 | 38 | 15.8 | 31 | 0.1 | 21.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-08-04 | 0 | 0 | 18.9 | 11 | 68 | 18 | 41.8 | 3.8 | 6.1 | bajo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 6,984ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 19days
- 16 Jul 2018 – 3 Aug 2018
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 16 Jul
- 2018
- Heat detections
- 269
- in a single hotspot: 315 MW
- Danger at start
- 29
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 533MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
16 Jul3 Aug
3 Aug 2018
How it evolved, day by day
16 Jul
20 Jul
25 Jul
28 Jul
31 Jul
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
34°high
60km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity
It had gone 33 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.8 mm on 4 Aug.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
4,447 ha0.1 %
-
San José 60,359 inhabitants2,561 ha0.1 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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)
Started with Strong wind: 9.5 % of the area in Bolivia
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Jul | 32.3 °C | 46 % | 55 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 29 |
| 17 Jul | 33.5 °C | 35 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 18 Jul | 33.5 °C | 34 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 19 Jul | 33.3 °C | 31 % | 60 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 20 Jul | 27.9 °C | 44 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 21 Jul | 20.1 °C | 41 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 22 Jul | 30.2 °C | 36 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 23 Jul | 24.2 °C | 43 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 24 Jul | 21.9 °C | 43 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 25 Jul | 24.3 °C | 39 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 26 Jul | 24.4 °C | 40 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 27 Jul | 30.0 °C | 35 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 28 Jul | 32.0 °C | 29 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 29 Jul | 27.0 °C | 43 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 30 Jul | 30.3 °C | 36 % | 45 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 27 |
| 31 Jul | 25.3 °C | 38 % | 38 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 30 |
| 1 Aug | 27.9 °C | 39 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 2 Aug | 26.8 °C | 40 % | 29 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 25 |
| 3 Aug | 29.9 °C | 38 % | 31 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 22 |
| 4 Aug after | 18.9 °C | 68 % | 42 km/h | 3.8 mm | Low 6 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 28.6, a minimum humidity of 46% and 33 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 34.
FWI at the start
28.6
Minimum humidity
46 %
Days without rain
33
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Charagua fire, July 2018
6,984 ha
19 days
FWI 28.6
Min. humidity 46 %
San José fire, May 2021
3,269 ha
2 days
FWI 25.6
Min. humidity 44 %
77 km away, in 2021
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.1 mm on 22 May.
San Miguel fire, July 2019
113,698 ha
73 days
FWI 27.8
Min. humidity 44 %
245 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 12.1 mm on 5 Oct.
San José fire, August 2019
6,404 ha
2 days
FWI 25.9
Min. humidity 42 %
34 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.2 mm on 26 Aug.
San José fire, June 2023
3,462 ha
17 days
FWI 24.3
Min. humidity 45 %
86 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 6.2 mm on 13 Jul.
San Rafael fire, July 2017
3,057 ha
25 days
FWI 24.8
Min. humidity 42 %
137 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 4.0 mm on 11 Aug.
What happened to them
- 17 days
- median duration
- 3,962 ha
- median area
- 12 %
- went past 10,000 ha
- 3.8 mm
- rain at the end (median; 28 of 34 had it)
It was 1.8 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 19 days, against 17 days.
Only 8 of its 34 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 6 of 34, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.8 mm.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
3.8 mmfirst rain
4 Augthe day after it ended
60km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 3 Aug, and on 4 Aug 3.8 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 28 of 34, with a median of 3.8 mm.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 9 Jul 2018
After · 10 Aug 2018
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
Detections table · 269Every 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
- 55,439 haSan José24 August 2019 · 25 days · 18 km away
- 38,531 haSan José19 August 2021 · 6 days · 18 km away
- 24,107 haSan José30 July 2016 · 8 days · 22 km away
- 26,714 haSan José17 August 2021 · 8 days · 34 km away
- 18,329 haSan JoséOctober 2017 · 8 days · 39 km away
- 16,335 haCharagua8 September 2019 · 4 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Charagua fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 July 2018 to 3 August 2018 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 July 2018 to 3 August 2018.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,984 hectares (69.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Charagua (4,447 ha, 0.1 %); San José (2,561 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, class Very 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.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 34. Their median duration was 17 days and their median area 3,962 ha; 12 % went past 10,000 ha. Only 8 of its 34 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 6 of 34, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.8 mm.
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 · Emergency number and official warnings
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Name: San José → Charagua.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 18 July 2018 to 3 August 2018. 269 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.