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Exaltación fire, 4 September 2023 Exaltación

Out · last detection 19 Sept 2023, 17:53 UTC

The fire started on 4 September 2023 in Exaltación, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,332 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 216th largest in Beni since 2016 (of 904 with a page). Number 67 in Bolivia in 2023, of 248.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Exaltación · 2020Exaltación · 2016Exaltación · 2025Exaltación · 2024

Burnt area
8,332ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
17days
4 Sept 2023 – 20 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
4 Sept
2023
Heat detections
345
in a single hotspot: 46 MW
Danger at start
22
High · FWI index
Average daily power
282MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Sept20 Sept
19 Sept 2023

How it evolved, day by day

6 Sept 2023 · 118 MW · 10 7 Sept 2023 · 632 MW · 48 8 Sept 2023 · 459 MW · 38 9 Sept 2023 · 66 MW · 15 10 Sept 2023 · 351 MW · 20 11 Sept 2023 · 217 MW · 30 12 Sept 2023 · 318 MW · 49 13 Sept 2023 · 687 MW · 36 14 Sept 2023 · 45 MW · 4 15 Sept 2023 · 242 MW · 24 16 Sept 2023 · 572 MW · 32 17 Sept 2023 · 96 MW · 15 18 Sept 2023 · 45 MW · 8 19 Sept 2023 · 106 MW · 16
6 Sept 8 Sept 10 Sept 12 Sept 13 Sept 14 Sept 16 Sept 18 Sept

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
44km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.1 mm on 30 Sept.

This area had burned before

47% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 572 ha in 2016, 263 ha in 2017, 1,295 ha in 2019, 2,541 ha in 2020, 1,145 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,952 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 5.3% of the area of London (83 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Exaltación 8,012 inhabitants where it started
    8,400 ha reached on 6 Sept
    0.3 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
4 Sept 36.0 °C 45 % 38 km/h 0.6 mm High 22
5 Sept 33.8 °C 52 % 27 km/h 10.1 mm Very low 3
6 Sept 34.7 °C 46 % 27 km/h 1.1 mm Low 9
7 Sept 36.0 °C 39 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 17
8 Sept 37.3 °C 38 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
9 Sept 37.4 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
10 Sept 37.2 °C 41 % 18 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 20
11 Sept 37.3 °C 40 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
12 Sept 36.8 °C 43 % 44 km/h 0.8 mm High 23
13 Sept 33.4 °C 53 % 43 km/h 9.9 mm Very low 3
14 Sept 27.2 °C 40 % 34 km/h 2.4 mm Very low 5
15 Sept 33.2 °C 39 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
16 Sept 37.3 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 20
17 Sept 38.3 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
18 Sept 37.8 °C 37 % 44 km/h 1.2 mm High 22
19 Sept 36.2 °C 41 % 31 km/h 3.5 mm Low 7
20 Sept 35.3 °C 42 % 24 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 13
21 Sept after 38.2 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
22 Sept after 38.5 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
23 Sept after 39.6 °C 29 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
24 Sept after 39.4 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 Sept after 39.0 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Sept after 39.0 °C 34 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
27 Sept after 39.2 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm High 33
28 Sept after 35.0 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Sept after 36.8 °C 38 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
30 Sept after 33.9 °C 50 % 32 km/h 7.1 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Aug 2023
After · 27 Sept 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 6 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 133 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 74: 4.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak133 µg/m³
Days over the guideline19 days
PM10190 µg/m³
Optical depth1.59
34567891011121314151617181920212223
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 · 345Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 4 September 2023 to 20 September 2023 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 September 2023 to 20 September 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 8,332 hectares (83.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Exaltación (8,400 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 27, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 5 September 2023 to 20 September 2023. 345 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.