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Cuatro Cañadas fire, August 2017 Cuatro Cañadas

Out · last detection 2 Sept 2017, 05:20 UTC

The fire started on 25 August 2017 in Cuatro Cañadas, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,023 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 828th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 834 with a page). Number 123 in Bolivia in 2017, of 123.

Burnt area
3,023ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
25 Aug 2017 – 2 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
25 Aug
2017
Heat detections
204
in a single hotspot: 134 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Aug2 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

252728293012

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
55km/h · peak gust
33%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 15.8 mm on 11 Sept.

This area had burned before

18% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 574 ha in 2016. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 538 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cuatro Cañadas 25,258 inhabitants where it started
    3,037 ha
    0.7 %

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)
25 Aug 35.1 °C 42 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
26 Aug 34.5 °C 47 % 55 km/h 0.2 mm High 21
27 Aug 35.7 °C 40 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
28 Aug 36.4 °C 37 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
29 Aug 37.6 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
30 Aug 32.1 °C 48 % 34 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 12
31 Aug 29.6 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
1 Sept 36.2 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
2 Sept 36.9 °C 36 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Sept after 37.2 °C 36 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
4 Sept after 38.5 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
5 Sept after 26.8 °C 41 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
6 Sept after 34.7 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
7 Sept after 36.4 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Sept after 37.0 °C 31 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Sept after 36.8 °C 38 % 64 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 40
10 Sept after 36.8 °C 40 % 66 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 41
11 Sept after 28.5 °C 53 % 47 km/h 15.8 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Aug 2017
After · 9 Sept 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 · 204Every 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 25 August 2017 and 2 September 2017: 9 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 3,023 hectares (30.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cuatro Cañadas (3,037 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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.