Huacaraje fire, 17 July 2024 Huacaraje, San Ramón
The fire started on 17 July 2024 in Huacaraje, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,715 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 69th largest in Beni since 2016 (of 904 with a page). Number 46 in Bolivia in 2024, of 295.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 16,715ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 9days
- 17 Jul 2024 – 25 Jul 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 17 Jul
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 597
- in a single hotspot: 170 MW
- Danger at start
- 24
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.3GW
- 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 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,050 ha in 2016, 7,889 ha in 2017, 2,648 ha in 2018, 3,860 ha in 2019, 6,678 ha in 2020, 4,779 ha in 2021, 3,184 ha in 2022, 1,359 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 15,256 ha that had burned before.
- 2,975 ha San Ramón fire, September 2016 5,527 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,928 ha San Ramón fire, August 2020 4,616 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,702 ha Huacaraje fire, September 2021 4,297 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,313 ha Huacaraje fire, September 2017 3,407 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,312 ha Huacaraje fire, August 2022 40,600 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,586 ha Huacaraje fire, August 2017 5,672 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,429 ha Huacaraje fire, September 2018 9,141 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 733 ha Huacaraje fire, October 2016 3,308 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
-
11,076 ha reached on 17 Jul2.0 %
-
San Ramón 5,489 inhabitants5,744 ha reached on 19 Jul0.7 %
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 0.45 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 Jul | 30.8 °C | 38 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 18 Jul | 32.6 °C | 35 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 19 Jul | 33.2 °C | 36 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 20 Jul | 33.6 °C | 33 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 21 Jul | 34.3 °C | 33 % | 15 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 22 Jul | 34.4 °C | 35 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 23 Jul | 34.0 °C | 32 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 24 Jul | 34.7 °C | 30 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 25 Jul | 35.0 °C | 35 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 26 Jul after | 35.2 °C | 37 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 27 Jul after | 36.3 °C | 32 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 28 Jul after | 35.4 °C | 34 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 29 Jul after | 35.2 °C | 28 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 30 Jul after | 29.5 °C | 45 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 31 Jul after | 33.8 °C | 40 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 1 Aug after | 35.1 °C | 38 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 2 Aug after | 35.5 °C | 36 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 3 Aug after | 35.2 °C | 40 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 4 Aug after | 36.4 °C | 35 % | 38 km/h | 0.8 mm | High 28 |
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 24 July 2024 the air beside the fire reached 311 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 150: 10 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 · 597Every 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 Huacaraje fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 July 2024 to 25 July 2024 (9 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 July 2024 to 25 July 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 16,715 hectares (167.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Huacaraje (11,076 ha, 2.0 %); San Ramón (5,744 ha, 0.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.0 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 29 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, 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.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 18 July 2024 to 25 July 2024. 597 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.