Chimoré fire, September 2024 Chimoré
The fire started on 20 September 2024 in Chimoré, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 20,928 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 2th largest in Cochabamba since 2016 (of 32 with a page). Number 33 in Bolivia in 2024, of 295.
- Burnt area
- 20,928ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 20days
- 20 Sept 2024 – 9 Oct 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 20 Sept
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 1,217
- in a single hotspot: 276 MW
- Danger at start
- 16
- Moderate · FWI index
- Energy released
- 14.4GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.4 mm on 14 Oct.
This area had burned before
70% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 13,209 ha in 2016, 2,388 ha in 2018, 1,520 ha in 2020, 8,461 ha in 2022, 7,821 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 14,679 ha that had burned before.
- 8,797 ha Chimoré fire, August 2016 11,364 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,637 ha Chimoré fire, September 2022 8,831 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,745 ha Chimoré fire, November 2023 12,957 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
21,009 ha7.5 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 Sept | 35.8 °C | 43 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 21 Sept | 35.6 °C | 41 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 22 Sept | 38.6 °C | 28 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 23 Sept | 38.1 °C | 30 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 24 Sept | 38.1 °C | 28 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 25 Sept | 36.5 °C | 37 % | 48 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 28 |
| 26 Sept | 35.3 °C | 44 % | 44 km/h | 18.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 27 Sept | 28.6 °C | 40 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 11 |
| 28 Sept | 32.8 °C | 42 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 11 |
| 29 Sept | 35.6 °C | 38 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 30 Sept | 36.7 °C | 40 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 1 Oct | 37.3 °C | 33 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 2 Oct | 36.5 °C | 43 % | 32 km/h | 1.4 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 3 Oct | 32.4 °C | 35 % | 30 km/h | 13.7 mm | Very low 3 |
| 4 Oct | 34.8 °C | 31 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 5 Oct | 37.2 °C | 34 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 6 Oct | 37.4 °C | 34 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 7 Oct | 37.0 °C | 36 % | 37 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 8 Oct | 35.9 °C | 46 % | 40 km/h | 4.6 mm | Very low 5 |
| 9 Oct | 31.0 °C | 73 % | 38 km/h | 38.9 mm | Very low 0 |
| 10 Oct after | 32.4 °C | 57 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 2 |
| 11 Oct after | 30.2 °C | 66 % | 35 km/h | 7.8 mm | Very low 0 |
| 12 Oct after | 33.4 °C | 55 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 2 |
| 13 Oct after | 35.0 °C | 50 % | 34 km/h | 0.9 mm | Low 5 |
| 14 Oct after | 28.9 °C | 74 % | 30 km/h | 8.4 mm | Very low 0 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 5 October 2024 the air beside the fire reached 740 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 295: 20 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 1,217Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 13,969 haVilla TunariSeptember 2022 · 9 days · 25 km away
- 26,148 haYapacaní27 September 2024 · 17 days · 27 km away
- 20,994 haYapacaní8 September 2024 · 31 days · 32 km away
- 23,756 haLoreto25 September 2021 · 14 days · 38 km away
- 13,171 haLoreto6 September 2016 · 6 days · 38 km away
- 17,297 haLoreto29 October 2019 · 8 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Chimoré fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 September 2024 and 9 October 2024: 20 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 20,928 hectares (209.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Chimoré (21,009 ha, 7.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, 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
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.