Exaltación fire, 26 October 2026 Exaltación
The fire started on 26 October 2026 in Exaltación, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,681 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 364th largest in Beni since 2016 (of 907 with a page). Number 23 in Bolivia in 2026, of 77.
The power measured by the satellite is low (17.5 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
Is it still active?
Satellites detected fire on 3 Nov 2026, 18:32 UTC. Everything suggests it is still burning. Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
- Burnt area
- 5,681ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 9days
- 26 Oct 2026 – 3 Nov 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 26 Oct
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 73
- in a single hotspot: 17 MW
- Danger at start
- 5
- Very low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 50MW
- 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.
This area had burned before
56% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,795 ha in 2016, 2,343 ha in 2017, 1,519 ha in 2019, 549 ha in 2020, 1,044 ha in 2021, 78 ha in 2022, 2,064 ha in 2023, 1,255 ha in 2024, 215 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,187 ha that had burned before.
- 1,442 ha Exaltación fire, September 2017 23,072 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,150 ha Exaltación fire, August 2016 10,320 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 594 ha Exaltación fire, July 2017 3,703 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 542 ha Exaltación fire, August 2024 46,688 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
-
5,716 ha reached on 26 Oct0.2 %
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.
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) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 Oct | 25.9 °C | 64 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 5 |
| 27 Oct | 28.5 °C | 64 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 28 Oct | 29.3 °C | 64 % | 34 km/h | 0.6 mm | Low 5 |
| 29 Oct | 27.8 °C | 66 % | 32 km/h | 0.8 mm | Very low 4 |
| 30 Oct | 29.9 °C | 62 % | 26 km/h | 0.7 mm | Very low 4 |
| 31 Oct | 31.6 °C | 57 % | 26 km/h | 0.5 mm | Low 7 |
| 1 Nov | 34.0 °C | 53 % | 33 km/h | 0.6 mm | Low 9 |
| 2 Nov | 34.0 °C | 52 % | 41 km/h | 1.4 mm | Low 7 |
| 3 Nov | 34.5 °C | 45 % | 28 km/h | 0.1 mm | Low 11 |
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 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 81 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 36: 2.4 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 · 73Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 23,072 haExaltación16 September 2017 · 6 days · 14 km away
- 15,972 haExaltación29 August 2022 · 6 days · 17 km away
- 46,688 haExaltación8 August 2024 · 35 days · 24 km away
- 17,236 haExaltaciónOctober 2018 · 13 days · 25 km away
- 14,561 haExaltación16 September 2020 · 37 days · 27 km away
- 19,425 haExaltación30 July 2024 · 24 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Exaltación fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 October 2026 to 3 November 2026 (9 days). The perimeter dates it from 26 October 2026 to 2 November 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,681 hectares (56.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Exaltación (5,716 ha, 0.2 %).
- Is the Exaltación fire still active?
- Yes: satellites detected fire on 3 Nov 2026, 18:32 UTC. Check the emergency service for the official status.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 45 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 11, class Low.
- 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 · 3 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 1 November 2026.
- Area: 4,343 → 5,681 ha.
- Area: 3,202 → 4,343 ha.
- Page published (3,202 ha).
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.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 26 October 2026 to 2 November 2026. 73 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: ECMWF IFS model, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives.
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.