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Charagua fire, 18 August 2019 Charagua

Out · last detection 26 Aug 2019, 16:54 UTC

The fire started on 18 August 2019 in Charagua, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 35,929 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 61th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 834 with a page). Number 22 in Bolivia in 2019, of 219.

Burnt area
35,929ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
18 Aug 2019 – 25 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
18 Aug
2019
Heat detections
1,341
in a single hotspot: 1,055 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
83.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Aug 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Aug25 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1819202122232426

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
59km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 32 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Charagua 101,733 inhabitants where it started
    35,930 ha
    0.5 %

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)
18 Aug 33.1 °C 31 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
19 Aug 26.7 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Aug 27.5 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
21 Aug 30.0 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
22 Aug 34.4 °C 27 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Aug 29.6 °C 39 % 39 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
24 Aug 34.6 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Aug 35.1 °C 26 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Aug after 35.5 °C 28 % 59 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 42
27 Aug after 31.3 °C 49 % 44 km/h 2.4 mm Moderate 14
28 Aug after 34.0 °C 31 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
29 Aug after 36.5 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Aug after 37.2 °C 22 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
31 Aug after 30.8 °C 39 % 48 km/h 0.1 mm High 37
1 Sept after 23.1 °C 48 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
2 Sept after 30.3 °C 37 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
3 Sept after 28.8 °C 35 % 36 km/h 0.7 mm High 26
4 Sept after 31.2 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
5 Sept after 29.3 °C 34 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Sept after 36.7 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Sept after 39.2 °C 18 % 70 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
8 Sept after 38.6 °C 20 % 65 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
9 Sept after 38.4 °C 21 % 75 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Aug 2019
After · 1 Sept 2019

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 · 1,341Every 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 Charagua fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 August 2019 and 25 August 2019: 8 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 35,929 hectares (359.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Charagua (35,930 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, class Extreme.
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.