Huacaraje fire, 25 August 2022 Huacaraje
The fire started on 25 August 2022 in Huacaraje, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 44 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 40,600 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 13th largest in Beni since 2016 (of 902 with a page). Number 9 in Bolivia in 2022, of 222.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 40,600ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 44days
- 25 Aug 2022 – 7 Oct 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 25 Aug
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 2,299
- in a single hotspot: 485 MW
- Danger at start
- 19
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 652MW
- 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 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.1 mm on 9 Oct.
This area had burned before
95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 21,410 ha in 2016, 18,657 ha in 2017, 7,942 ha in 2018, 19,837 ha in 2019, 16,745 ha in 2020, 29,428 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 38,575 ha that had burned before.
- 19,033 ha Huacaraje fire, September 2021 36,282 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,484 ha San Ramón fire, July 2016 16,390 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,016 ha Huacaraje fire, September 2017 8,063 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,362 ha Huacaraje fire, August 2020 8,911 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,509 ha Huacaraje fire, October 2019 5,626 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,343 ha Huacaraje fire, August 2019 4,444 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,588 ha Huacaraje fire, August 2016 3,405 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,550 ha Huacaraje fire, September 2016 4,139 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
-
40,844 ha reached on 25 Aug7.4 %
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 2020Inside the perimeter there were about 0.13 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Aug | 35.5 °C | 33 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 26 Aug | 34.8 °C | 37 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 27 Aug | 35.3 °C | 37 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 28 Aug | 35.5 °C | 37 % | 40 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 30 |
| 29 Aug | 27.5 °C | 32 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 30 Aug | 31.3 °C | 29 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 31 Aug | 34.6 °C | 32 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 1 Sept | 34.8 °C | 36 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 2 Sept | 36.6 °C | 30 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 3 Sept | 31.1 °C | 34 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 4 Sept | 30.7 °C | 31 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 5 Sept | 32.6 °C | 30 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 6 Sept | 33.5 °C | 26 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 7 Sept | 35.3 °C | 30 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 8 Sept | 35.2 °C | 38 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 9 Sept | 36.6 °C | 38 % | 37 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 32 |
| 10 Sept | 28.1 °C | 50 % | 38 km/h | 3.1 mm | Low 8 |
| 11 Sept | 30.9 °C | 38 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 12 Sept | 34.8 °C | 43 % | 30 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 13 Sept | 34.8 °C | 42 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 14 Sept | 29.2 °C | 44 % | 43 km/h | 5.2 mm | Low 7 |
| 15 Sept | 27.5 °C | 33 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 16 Sept | 32.2 °C | 35 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 21 |
| 17 Sept | 35.7 °C | 34 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 18 Sept | 36.6 °C | 36 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 19 Sept | 36.7 °C | 39 % | 42 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 28 |
| 20 Sept | 36.9 °C | 41 % | 38 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 29 |
| 21 Sept | 37.0 °C | 39 % | 44 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 31 |
| 22 Sept | 32.1 °C | 52 % | 36 km/h | 2.4 mm | Low 11 |
| 23 Sept | 26.6 °C | 52 % | 36 km/h | 1.8 mm | Low 8 |
| 24 Sept | 33.9 °C | 36 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 25 Sept | 35.8 °C | 38 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 26 Sept | 35.7 °C | 41 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 27 Sept | 36.2 °C | 42 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 28 Sept | 34.8 °C | 43 % | 38 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 25 |
| 29 Sept | 26.6 °C | 55 % | 45 km/h | 12.1 mm | Very low 4 |
| 30 Sept | 29.9 °C | 50 % | 32 km/h | 0.9 mm | Low 7 |
| 1 Oct | 33.7 °C | 43 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 2 Oct | 34.8 °C | 42 % | 22 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 3 Oct | 35.6 °C | 43 % | 22 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 4 Oct | 34.3 °C | 49 % | 33 km/h | 0.7 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 5 Oct | 34.9 °C | 44 % | 44 km/h | 0.7 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 6 Oct | 34.5 °C | 48 % | 44 km/h | 1.6 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 7 Oct | 26.1 °C | 86 % | 39 km/h | 31.5 mm | Very low 0 |
| 8 Oct after | 31.9 °C | 60 % | 41 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very low 2 |
| 9 Oct after | 33.1 °C | 59 % | 30 km/h | 4.1 mm | Very low 1 |
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 6 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 1,036 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 387: 26 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 · 2,299Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 36,282 haHuacaraje11 September 2021 · 23 days · 2 km away
- 27,886 haHuacaraje13 July 2024 · 26 days · 10 km away
- 19,681 haHuacaraje8 October 2023 · 19 days · 14 km away
- 16,390 haSan Ramón20 July 2016 · 16 days · 16 km away
- 16,715 haHuacaraje17 July 2024 · 9 days · 24 km away
- 32,069 haHuacaraje24 August 2022 · 36 days · 26 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Huacaraje fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 25 August 2022 to 7 October 2022 (44 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 August 2022 to 2 October 2022.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 40,600 hectares (406.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Huacaraje (40,844 ha, 7.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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.
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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 25 August 2022 to 2 October 2022. 2,299 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 2020, 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.