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BO · Bolivia · –

Exaltación fire, 30 July 2024 Exaltación

Out · last detection 22 Aug 2024, 17:15 UTC

The fire started on 30 July 2024 in Exaltación, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 19,425 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 54th largest in Beni since 2016 (of 859 with a page). Number 38 in Bolivia in 2024, of 295.

Burnt area
19,425ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
24days
30 Jul 2024 – 22 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
30 Jul
2024
Heat detections
1,621
in a single hotspot: 317 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Average daily power
917MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Jul22 Aug
22 Aug 2024

How it evolved, day by day

30 Jul 2024 · 209 MW · 25 31 Jul 2024 · 318 MW · 34 1 Aug 2024 · 2,338 MW · 72 2 Aug 2024 · 2,587 MW · 131 3 Aug 2024 · 3,251 MW · 237 4 Aug 2024 · 3,753 MW · 181 5 Aug 2024 · 4,031 MW · 325 6 Aug 2024 · 828 MW · 111 7 Aug 2024 · 122 MW · 53 8 Aug 2024 · 165 MW · 62 10 Aug 2024 · 71 MW · 9 11 Aug 2024 · 26 MW · 7 12 Aug 2024 · 1,134 MW · 63 13 Aug 2024 · 927 MW · 89 14 Aug 2024 · 710 MW · 91 15 Aug 2024 · 150 MW · 24 16 Aug 2024 · 52 MW · 13 17 Aug 2024 · 9 MW · 5 18 Aug 2024 · 53 MW · 14 19 Aug 2024 · 58 MW · 18 20 Aug 2024 · 109 MW · 20 21 Aug 2024 · 89 MW · 18 22 Aug 2024 · 101 MW · 19
30 Jul 5 Aug 10 Aug 15 Aug 20 Aug

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
46km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 30 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,104 ha in 2016, 17,786 ha in 2017, 1,057 ha in 2018, 861 ha in 2019, 14,713 ha in 2020, 11,822 ha in 2021, 11,006 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 18,894 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 12% of the area of London (194 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
    19,568 ha reached on 30 Jul
    0.8 %

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 area0.15 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.15 hectares of 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)
30 Jul 29.5 °C 43 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
31 Jul 33.0 °C 41 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
1 Aug 35.0 °C 38 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Aug 35.3 °C 40 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Aug 35.3 °C 41 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
4 Aug 36.5 °C 38 % 34 km/h 1.2 mm High 26
5 Aug 35.3 °C 44 % 29 km/h 0.5 mm High 23
6 Aug 34.1 °C 48 % 36 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 17
7 Aug 32.0 °C 57 % 46 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 15
8 Aug 32.6 °C 57 % 36 km/h 5.2 mm Low 7
9 Aug 23.8 °C 60 % 44 km/h 4.0 mm Low 6
10 Aug 24.6 °C 35 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
11 Aug 29.2 °C 33 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
12 Aug 30.6 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
13 Aug 30.7 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Aug 33.5 °C 27 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
15 Aug 36.3 °C 31 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Aug 36.9 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
17 Aug 37.2 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
18 Aug 37.4 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
19 Aug 36.6 °C 38 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
20 Aug 37.5 °C 36 % 24 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
21 Aug 36.0 °C 43 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
22 Aug 37.0 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 Aug after 36.2 °C 39 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
24 Aug after 31.8 °C 46 % 43 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
25 Aug after 24.5 °C 38 % 53 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 39
26 Aug after 25.7 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Aug after 29.8 °C 31 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
28 Aug after 32.8 °C 34 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
29 Aug after 36.5 °C 32 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
30 Aug after 36.2 °C 35 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
31 Aug after 36.6 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
1 Sept after 33.2 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 38

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 33.0, a minimum humidity of 43% and 30 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 15.

FWI at the start 33.0
Minimum humidity 43 %
Days without rain 30
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

San Joaquín fire, August 2016
27,782 ha 22 days FWI 32.9 Min. humidity 44 % 69 km away, in 2016

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 25.1 mm on 3 Sept.

What happened to them

10 days
median duration
6,326 ha
median area
27 %
went past 10,000 ha
5.2 mm
rain at the end (median; 14 of 15 had it)

It was 3.1 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 24 days, against 10 days.

Only 1 of its 15 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 1 of 15, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 5.2 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
46km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 22 Aug, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 14 of 15, with a median of 5.2 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Jul 2024
After · 29 Aug 2024

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 14 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 98 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 71: 4.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak98 µg/m³
Days over the guideline20 days
PM10141 µg/m³
Optical depth1.94
28 Jul2 Aug7 Aug12 Aug17 Aug
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 · 1,621Every 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 30 July 2024 to 22 August 2024 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 30 July 2024 to 15 August 2024.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 19,425 hectares (194.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Exaltación (19,568 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 15. Their median duration was 10 days and their median area 6,326 ha; 27 % went past 10,000 ha. Only 1 of its 15 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 1 of 15, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 5.2 mm.

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.

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.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 30 July 2024 to 15 August 2024. 1,621 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.