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Cuatro Cañadas fire, July 2017 Cuatro Cañadas

Out · last detection 12 Aug 2017, 17:45 UTC

The fire started on 21 July 2017 in Cuatro Cañadas, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,572 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 647th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 834 with a page). Number 102 in Bolivia in 2017, of 123.

Burnt area
3,572ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
22days
21 Jul 2017 – 11 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
21 Jul
2017
Heat detections
471
in a single hotspot: 101 MW
Danger at start
22
High · FWI index
Energy released
5.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Aug 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Jul11 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2122232425262728293023456789101112

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
80km/h · peak gust
31%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 15.5 mm on 13 Aug.

This area had burned before

33% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,063 ha in 2016. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,167 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cuatro Cañadas 25,258 inhabitants where it started
    3,591 ha
    0.8 %

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)
21 Jul 29.6 °C 44 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
22 Jul 32.3 °C 42 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
23 Jul 33.1 °C 41 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Jul 33.9 °C 42 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Jul 34.8 °C 41 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
26 Jul 33.6 °C 39 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
27 Jul 33.3 °C 31 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
28 Jul 33.4 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Jul 32.6 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Jul 32.6 °C 36 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
31 Jul 33.4 °C 36 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
1 Aug 33.2 °C 37 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 Aug 26.9 °C 50 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 Aug 24.1 °C 48 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
4 Aug 27.9 °C 47 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
5 Aug 32.0 °C 42 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
6 Aug 33.4 °C 37 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Aug 34.0 °C 36 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Aug 35.0 °C 35 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Aug 34.8 °C 42 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
10 Aug 35.6 °C 38 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Aug 33.9 °C 47 % 80 km/h 0.7 mm Very high 38
12 Aug after 35.0 °C 42 % 84 km/h 0.7 mm Very high 44
13 Aug after 26.8 °C 67 % 52 km/h 15.5 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Jul 2017
After · 18 Aug 2017

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 · 471Every 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 Cuatro Cañadas fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 July 2017 and 11 August 2017: 22 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 3,572 hectares (35.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cuatro Cañadas (3,591 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 80 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, class Very 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.