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Exaltación fire, July 2023 Exaltación

Out · last detection 31 Jul 2023, 18:31 UTC

The fire started on 27 July 2023 in Exaltación, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,172 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 576th largest in Beni since 2016 (of 902 with a page). Number 164 in Bolivia in 2023, of 248.

Burnt area
4,172ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
27 Jul 2023 – 31 Jul 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
27 Jul
2023
Heat detections
95
in a single hotspot: 33 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
691MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Jul 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Jul31 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

28293031

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
36km/h · peak gust
37%lowest humidity

It had gone 42 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,828 ha in 2016, 257 ha in 2017, 481 ha in 2018, 577 ha in 2019, 152 ha in 2020, 3,518 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,805 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Exaltación 8,012 inhabitants where it started
    4,189 ha
    0.2 %

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)
27 Jul 33.5 °C 41 % 21 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
28 Jul 32.8 °C 48 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
29 Jul 32.0 °C 44 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
30 Jul 34.4 °C 37 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
31 Jul 35.0 °C 38 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
1 Aug after 35.3 °C 37 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
2 Aug after 35.9 °C 32 % 13 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
3 Aug after 35.3 °C 39 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
4 Aug after 34.4 °C 44 % 14 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
5 Aug after 35.5 °C 38 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
6 Aug after 36.0 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
7 Aug after 36.5 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 Aug after 33.7 °C 46 % 28 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
9 Aug after 35.2 °C 41 % 20 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
10 Aug after 35.9 °C 46 % 28 km/h 0.7 mm High 24

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Jul 2023
After · 7 Aug 2023

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 27 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 26 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak26 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1037 µg/m³
Optical depth0.39
25262728293031123
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 · 95Every 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 Exaltación fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 July 2023 and 31 July 2023: 5 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 4,172 hectares (41.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Exaltación (4,189 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.0 °C, humidity dropped to 37 % and gusts hit 36 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.