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Charagua fire, 8 September 2019 Charagua

Out · last detection 11 Sept 2019, 16:54 UTC

The fire started on 8 September 2019 in Charagua, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,335 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 132th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 834 with a page). Number 39 in Bolivia in 2019, of 219.

Burnt area
16,335ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
8 Sept 2019 – 11 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
8 Sept
2019
Heat detections
623
in a single hotspot: 509 MW
Danger at start
50
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
27.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Sept 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Sept11 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

891011

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
72km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 201 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Charagua 101,733 inhabitants where it started
    16,362 ha
    0.2 %

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)
8 Sept 38.1 °C 30 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
9 Sept 38.0 °C 24 % 72 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
10 Sept 36.8 °C 30 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
11 Sept 36.8 °C 34 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Sept after 27.2 °C 48 % 49 km/h 0.2 mm High 34
13 Sept after 30.2 °C 45 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
14 Sept after 37.2 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 Sept after 38.8 °C 21 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
16 Sept after 39.4 °C 26 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
17 Sept after 32.2 °C 41 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Sept after 30.1 °C 45 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
19 Sept after 37.7 °C 35 % 74 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
20 Sept after 30.9 °C 52 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
21 Sept after 30.4 °C 38 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 30

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Sept 2019
After · 18 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 · 623Every 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 8 September 2019 and 11 September 2019: 4 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 16,335 hectares (163.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Charagua (16,362 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.1 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 72 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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.