How long did the Loreto fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 August 2022 and 9 September 2022: 16 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 6,618 hectares (66.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Loreto (6,641 ha, 1.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 34.1 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 50 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.

BO · Bolivia · 2022-08-25 → 2022-09-09

Loreto fire, 25 August 2022 Loreto

Out · last detection 9 Sept 2022, 18:24 UTC

The fire started on 25 August 2022 in Loreto, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,618 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 295th largest in Beni since 2016 (of 902 with a page). Number 84 in Bolivia in 2022, of 222.

Burnt area: 6,618ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 16days; 25 Aug 2022 – 9 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 25 Aug; 2022
Heat detections: 337; in a single hotspot: 126 MW
Danger at start: 14; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 4.2GW; sum of detected power

Play back 9 Sept 2022

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Aug9 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

25262729303113456789

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

The weather it burned in

34°high

50km/h · peak gust

25%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.9 mm on 10 Sept.

This area had burned before

57% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 719 ha in 2016, 1,454 ha in 2019, 2,132 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,752 ha that had burned before.

53 ha Loreto fire, October 2019 3,490 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Loreto 4,269 inhabitants where it started

6,641 ha

1.0 %

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)
25 Aug	32.3 °C	49 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
26 Aug	31.8 °C	51 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
27 Aug	33.0 °C	48 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
28 Aug	31.8 °C	34 %	45 km/h	0.5 mm	High 24
29 Aug	26.9 °C	33 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
30 Aug	29.2 °C	32 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
31 Aug	31.0 °C	38 %	17 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
1 Sept	33.2 °C	42 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
2 Sept	31.2 °C	38 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
3 Sept	28.5 °C	31 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
4 Sept	28.5 °C	32 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
5 Sept	28.5 °C	30 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
6 Sept	32.0 °C	25 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
7 Sept	32.9 °C	35 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
8 Sept	33.8 °C	43 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
9 Sept	34.1 °C	46 %	48 km/h	0.2 mm	High 25
10 Sept after	26.5 °C	48 %	41 km/h	3.9 mm	Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 18 Aug 2022

After · 16 Sept 2022

Before After

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 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 322 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 136: 9.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak322 µg/m³

Days over the guideline19 days

PM10460 µg/m³

Optical depth3.68

WHO 15

232425262728293031123456789101112

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 · 337Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Bolivia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Loreto fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 August 2022 and 9 September 2022: 16 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 6,618 hectares (66.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Loreto (6,641 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 34.1 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 50 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

Viceministerio de Defensa Civil ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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.

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.

Where it burned