Ixiamas fire, 18 August 2024 Ixiamas
The fire started on 18 August 2024 in Ixiamas, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 28,976 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 3th largest in La Paz since 2016 (of 115 with a page). Number 24 in Bolivia in 2024, of 295.
- Burnt area
- 28,976ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 25days
- 18 Aug 2024 – 11 Sept 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 18 Aug
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 1,238
- in a single hotspot: 195 MW
- Danger at start
- 28
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 13.9GW
- sum of detected power
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 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.4 mm on 15 Sept.
This area had burned before
83% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,794 ha in 2016, 1,389 ha in 2017, 1,088 ha in 2018, 12,119 ha in 2020, 747 ha in 2021, 17,165 ha in 2022, 5,094 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 24,090 ha that had burned before.
- 15,261 ha Ixiamas fire, September 2022 28,944 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,291 ha Ixiamas fire, October 2020 23,477 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,429 ha Ixiamas fire, September 2023 16,472 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,332 ha Ixiamas fire, September 2016 3,270 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
29,157 ha0.8 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre 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) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 Aug | 36.3 °C | 36 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 19 Aug | 36.4 °C | 35 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 20 Aug | 36.6 °C | 36 % | 28 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 33 |
| 21 Aug | 36.9 °C | 34 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 22 Aug | 35.5 °C | 42 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 23 Aug | 35.7 °C | 42 % | 37 km/h | 0.9 mm | High 26 |
| 24 Aug | 30.6 °C | 49 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 25 Aug | 24.8 °C | 40 % | 49 km/h | 10.1 mm | Low 6 |
| 26 Aug | 27.7 °C | 23 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 27 Aug | 31.4 °C | 25 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 28 Aug | 33.8 °C | 29 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 29 Aug | 36.0 °C | 28 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 30 Aug | 37.1 °C | 25 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 31 Aug | 36.7 °C | 29 % | 22 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 30 |
| 1 Sept | 31.8 °C | 43 % | 44 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 32 |
| 2 Sept | 34.6 °C | 31 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 3 Sept | 37.1 °C | 27 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 4 Sept | 37.3 °C | 30 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 5 Sept | 34.1 °C | 34 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 6 Sept | 33.8 °C | 36 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 7 Sept | 35.7 °C | 31 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 8 Sept | 36.5 °C | 31 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 9 Sept | 37.1 °C | 29 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 10 Sept | 37.2 °C | 30 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 11 Sept | 36.1 °C | 40 % | 39 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 38 |
| 12 Sept after | 34.5 °C | 51 % | 39 km/h | 2.3 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 13 Sept after | 35.7 °C | 44 % | 36 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 25 |
| 14 Sept after | 34.0 °C | 50 % | 49 km/h | 6.5 mm | Low 8 |
| 15 Sept after | 24.3 °C | 68 % | 39 km/h | 4.4 mm | Very low 3 |
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 12 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 156 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 114: 7.6 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 · 1,238Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 28,944 haIxiamasSeptember 2022 · 12 days · 7 km away
- 22,697 haIxiamas2 October 2017 · 9 days · 19 km away
- 23,477 haIxiamas4 October 2020 · 10 days · 21 km away
- 31,918 haIxiamas12 September 2019 · 10 days · 27 km away
- 23,067 haIxiamas24 August 2023 · 4 days · 33 km away
- 18,591 haIxiamas14 August 2019 · 6 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ixiamas fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 August 2024 and 11 September 2024: 25 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 28,976 hectares (289.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Ixiamas (29,157 ha, 0.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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
Satellite cross-check
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
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.