Exaltación fire, 8 August 2024 Exaltación
The fire started on 8 August 2024 in Exaltación, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 35 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 46,688 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 9th largest in Beni since 2016 (of 907 with a page). Number 11 in Bolivia in 2024, of 295.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 46,688ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 35days
- 8 Aug 2024 – 11 Sept 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 8 Aug
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 1,782
- in a single hotspot: 218 MW
- Danger at start
- 4
- Very low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 720MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 15 Sept.
This area had burned before
92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 11,255 ha in 2016, 33,483 ha in 2017, 13,201 ha in 2018, 11,622 ha in 2019, 16,864 ha in 2020, 11,117 ha in 2021, 9,569 ha in 2022, 19,383 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 42,766 ha that had burned before.
- 9,046 ha Exaltación fire, September 2017 23,072 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 8,458 ha Exaltación fire, September 2020 14,561 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,864 ha Exaltación fire, July 2017 9,580 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,964 ha Exaltación fire, August 2022 15,972 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,666 ha Exaltación fire, August 2016 10,320 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,667 ha Exaltación fire, October 2019 7,913 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,940 ha Exaltación fire, August 2017 5,860 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,631 ha Exaltación fire, October 2021 3,873 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
46,983 ha reached on 8 Aug1.9 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 0.66 hectares of built-up land and about 40 residents (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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 Aug | 32.3 °C | 59 % | 34 km/h | 6.2 mm | Very low 4 |
| 9 Aug | 23.3 °C | 62 % | 40 km/h | 6.7 mm | Very low 1 |
| 10 Aug | 24.1 °C | 38 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 11 Aug | 29.1 °C | 37 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 12 Aug | 30.4 °C | 27 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 13 Aug | 30.5 °C | 23 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 14 Aug | 33.6 °C | 30 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 15 Aug | 35.8 °C | 34 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 16 Aug | 36.5 °C | 35 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 17 Aug | 36.9 °C | 38 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 18 Aug | 37.3 °C | 36 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 19 Aug | 36.4 °C | 39 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 20 Aug | 37.3 °C | 37 % | 24 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 23 |
| 21 Aug | 35.8 °C | 43 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 22 Aug | 36.4 °C | 40 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 23 Aug | 35.8 °C | 41 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 24 Aug | 31.9 °C | 47 % | 38 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 28 |
| 25 Aug | 24.4 °C | 39 % | 52 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 31 |
| 26 Aug | 25.7 °C | 29 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 27 Aug | 30.1 °C | 33 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 28 Aug | 33.1 °C | 34 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 29 Aug | 36.4 °C | 34 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 30 Aug | 36.1 °C | 36 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 31 Aug | 36.8 °C | 35 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 1 Sept | 33.1 °C | 37 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 2 Sept | 33.5 °C | 34 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 3 Sept | 36.1 °C | 34 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 4 Sept | 36.7 °C | 39 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 5 Sept | 31.2 °C | 38 % | 40 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 39 |
| 6 Sept | 31.6 °C | 34 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 7 Sept | 34.6 °C | 35 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 8 Sept | 36.3 °C | 38 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 9 Sept | 37.1 °C | 38 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 10 Sept | 37.6 °C | 36 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 11 Sept | 37.0 °C | 40 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 12 Sept after | 37.1 °C | 42 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 13 Sept after | 38.4 °C | 35 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 14 Sept after | 38.5 °C | 35 % | 29 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 33 |
| 15 Sept after | 28.2 °C | 48 % | 34 km/h | 1.5 mm | Moderate 16 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 29 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 242 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 177: 12 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 1,782Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Exaltación fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 8 August 2024 to 11 September 2024 (35 days). The perimeter dates it from 10 August 2024 to 11 September 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 46,688 hectares (466.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Exaltación (46,983 ha, 1.9 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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 · 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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 4 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 10 August 2024 to 11 September 2024. 1,782 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.
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.