Chimoré fire, September 2025 Chimoré
The fire started on 24 September 2025 in Chimoré, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,478 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 21th largest in Cochabamba since 2016 (of 32 with a page). Number 55 in Bolivia in 2025, of 94.
- Burnt area
- 4,478ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 6days
- 24 Sept 2025 – 29 Sept 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 24 Sept
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 127
- in a single hotspot: 109 MW
- Danger at start
- 12
- Moderate · FWI index
- Energy released
- 1.8GW
- 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 one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 mm on 30 Sept.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,223 ha in 2016, 705 ha in 2018, 2,185 ha in 2020, 2,518 ha in 2022, 5,015 ha in 2023, 583 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,322 ha that had burned before.
- 4,210 ha Chimoré fire, November 2023 12,957 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,640 ha Chimoré fire, August 2016 11,364 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 583 ha Chimoré fire, September 2024 20,928 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
4,493 ha1.6 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 Sept | 32.0 °C | 45 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 25 Sept | 33.4 °C | 35 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 26 Sept | 36.0 °C | 34 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 27 Sept | 36.0 °C | 36 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 21 |
| 28 Sept | 31.1 °C | 49 % | 34 km/h | 1.2 mm | Moderate 11 |
| 29 Sept | 34.8 °C | 47 % | 40 km/h | 1.6 mm | Low 10 |
| 30 Sept after | 34.2 °C | 52 % | 47 km/h | 1.8 mm | Low 8 |
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 26 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 190 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 101: 6.7 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 · 127Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Chimoré fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 September 2025 and 29 September 2025: 6 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 4,478 hectares (44.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Chimoré (4,493 ha, 1.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 21, 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.