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Huacaraje fire, 23 September 2023 Huacaraje

Out · last detection 25 Oct 2023, 18:18 UTC

The fire started on 23 September 2023 in Huacaraje, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 32 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 27,922 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 30th largest in Beni since 2016 (of 903 with a page). Number 6 in Bolivia in 2023, of 248.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Huacaraje · 2021Huacaraje · 2016Huacaraje · 2022Huacaraje · 2024

Burnt area
27,922ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
32days
23 Sept 2023 – 24 Oct 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
23 Sept
2023
Heat detections
1,651
in a single hotspot: 279 MW
Danger at start
19
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
684MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Sept24 Oct
25 Oct 2023

How it evolved, day by day

23 Sept 2023 · 7 MW · 1 24 Sept 2023 · 147 MW · 11 25 Sept 2023 · 132 MW · 9 26 Sept 2023 · 173 MW · 20 27 Sept 2023 · 214 MW · 20 28 Sept 2023 · 247 MW · 28 29 Sept 2023 · 971 MW · 21 30 Sept 2023 · 784 MW · 67 1 Oct 2023 · 18 MW · 10 2 Oct 2023 · 310 MW · 20 3 Oct 2023 · 1,133 MW · 115 4 Oct 2023 · 2,509 MW · 153 5 Oct 2023 · 4,501 MW · 289 6 Oct 2023 · 2,096 MW · 147 7 Oct 2023 · 2,859 MW · 298 8 Oct 2023 · 433 MW · 38 9 Oct 2023 · 152 MW · 12 10 Oct 2023 · 1,262 MW · 76 11 Oct 2023 · 1,252 MW · 83 12 Oct 2023 · 162 MW · 28 14 Oct 2023 · 22 MW · 7 15 Oct 2023 · 145 MW · 21 16 Oct 2023 · 165 MW · 9 17 Oct 2023 · 93 MW · 7 18 Oct 2023 · 369 MW · 10 19 Oct 2023 · 464 MW · 19 20 Oct 2023 · 63 MW · 20 21 Oct 2023 · 404 MW · 21 22 Oct 2023 · 281 MW · 17 23 Oct 2023 · 366 MW · 48 24 Oct 2023 · 130 MW · 11 25 Oct 2023 · 25 MW · 15
23 Sept 28 Sept 3 Oct 5 Oct 8 Oct 14 Oct 19 Oct 24 Oct

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

39°high
54km/h · peak gust
33%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.0 mm on 25 Oct.

This area had burned before

35% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,671 ha in 2016, 1,073 ha in 2017, 507 ha in 2018, 1,214 ha in 2020, 7,334 ha in 2021, 2,662 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,832 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 18% of the area of London (279 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. Huacaraje 4,630 inhabitants where it started
    28,055 ha reached on 23 Sept
    5.1 %

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 area0.30 ha
Residents≈ 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.30 hectares of built-up land and about 20 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)
23 Sept 37.4 °C 37 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 19
24 Sept 37.4 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
25 Sept 38.3 °C 37 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
26 Sept 37.1 °C 40 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
27 Sept 37.5 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.8 mm High 25
28 Sept 33.8 °C 43 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
29 Sept 34.6 °C 47 % 25 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 18
30 Sept 30.9 °C 64 % 26 km/h 9.0 mm Very low 1
1 Oct 33.5 °C 54 % 25 km/h 0.7 mm Very low 5
2 Oct 36.0 °C 50 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 14
3 Oct 36.9 °C 41 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
4 Oct 37.0 °C 42 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
5 Oct 36.5 °C 45 % 46 km/h 0.2 mm High 24
6 Oct 37.3 °C 41 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
7 Oct 37.1 °C 43 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
8 Oct 31.8 °C 58 % 34 km/h 5.9 mm Very low 2
9 Oct 33.2 °C 50 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
10 Oct 35.6 °C 48 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 15
11 Oct 36.3 °C 45 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
12 Oct 36.0 °C 49 % 29 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 13
13 Oct 29.5 °C 60 % 38 km/h 4.4 mm Very low 3
14 Oct 34.3 °C 44 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 11
15 Oct 36.8 °C 44 % 22 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 14
16 Oct 36.7 °C 42 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
17 Oct 35.9 °C 41 % 32 km/h 3.4 mm Low 8
18 Oct 36.8 °C 41 % 22 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 14
19 Oct 38.6 °C 36 % 20 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 18
20 Oct 36.7 °C 43 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
21 Oct 38.2 °C 34 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
22 Oct 38.9 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
23 Oct 38.1 °C 38 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
24 Oct 37.6 °C 43 % 40 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
25 Oct after 36.8 °C 46 % 32 km/h 8.0 mm Low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Sept 2023
After · 31 Oct 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 8 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 225 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 150: 10.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak225 µg/m³
Days over the guideline21 days
PM10321 µg/m³
Optical depth4.44
272829301234567891011121314151617181920
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 · 1,651Every 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 Huacaraje fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 September 2023 to 24 October 2023 (32 days). The perimeter dates it from 29 September 2023 to 17 October 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 27,922 hectares (279.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Huacaraje (28,055 ha, 5.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 29 September 2023 to 17 October 2023. 1,651 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.