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Chimoré fire, September 2022 Chimoré

Out · last detection 12 Sept 2022, 17:27 UTC

The fire started on 5 September 2022 in Chimoré, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,831 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 8th largest in Cochabamba since 2016 (of 32 with a page). Number 57 in Bolivia in 2022, of 222.

Burnt area
8,831ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
5 Sept 2022 – 12 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
5 Sept
2022
Heat detections
246
in a single hotspot: 192 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Sept 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Sept12 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

56789101112

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
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.6 mm on 13 Sept.

This area had burned before

81% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 8,182 ha in 2016, 1,544 ha in 2018, 50 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,160 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Chimoré 27,521 inhabitants where it started
    8,864 ha
    3.2 %

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)
5 Sept 27.6 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
6 Sept 31.9 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
7 Sept 33.4 °C 33 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
8 Sept 34.2 °C 40 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Sept 33.3 °C 44 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm High 23
10 Sept 26.4 °C 37 % 40 km/h 1.8 mm Moderate 14
11 Sept 31.6 °C 31 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
12 Sept 32.1 °C 49 % 28 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 19
13 Sept after 25.8 °C 69 % 45 km/h 6.6 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Aug 2022
After · 19 Sept 2022

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 11 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 613 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 263: 18 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak613 µg/m³
Days over the guideline13 days
PM10877 µg/m³
Optical depth3.77
3456789101112131415
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 · 246Every 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 Chimoré fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 September 2022 and 12 September 2022: 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 8,831 hectares (88.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chimoré (8,864 ha, 3.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class 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.

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.