Loreto fire, 23 August 2024 Loreto
The fire started on 23 August 2024 in Loreto, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,844 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 280th largest in Beni since 2016 (of 902 with a page). Number 117 in Bolivia in 2024, of 295.
- Burnt area
- 6,844ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 14days
- 23 Aug 2024 – 5 Sept 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 23 Aug
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 215
- in a single hotspot: 324 MW
- Danger at start
- 19
- Moderate · FWI index
- Energy released
- 4.1GW
- 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 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.3 mm on 12 Sept.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,296 ha in 2016, 72 ha in 2017, 2 ha in 2018, 5,382 ha in 2019, 2,522 ha in 2020, 82 ha in 2021, 4,536 ha in 2022, 3,158 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,643 ha that had burned before.
- 5,225 ha Loreto fire, September 2019 18,617 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,409 ha Loreto fire, August 2022 8,337 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,117 ha Loreto fire, November 2023 11,772 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,985 ha Loreto fire, November 2020 4,904 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 48 ha Loreto fire, October 2019 5,095 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
6,867 ha1.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 Aug | 31.0 °C | 54 % | 30 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 24 Aug | 25.3 °C | 54 % | 45 km/h | 2.1 mm | Low 9 |
| 25 Aug | 21.9 °C | 26 % | 51 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 24 |
| 26 Aug | 24.7 °C | 22 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 27 Aug | 29.4 °C | 32 % | 14 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 28 Aug | 32.2 °C | 31 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 29 Aug | 36.4 °C | 32 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 30 Aug | 35.6 °C | 34 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 31 Aug | 33.9 °C | 41 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 1 Sept | 29.6 °C | 33 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 2 Sept | 33.3 °C | 31 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 3 Sept | 36.2 °C | 31 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 4 Sept | 36.0 °C | 39 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 5 Sept | 30.4 °C | 32 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 6 Sept after | 30.7 °C | 31 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 7 Sept after | 35.3 °C | 30 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 8 Sept after | 37.0 °C | 32 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 9 Sept after | 37.8 °C | 30 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 10 Sept after | 37.9 °C | 31 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 11 Sept after | 37.9 °C | 33 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 12 Sept after | 32.1 °C | 60 % | 37 km/h | 6.3 mm | Very low 5 |
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 7 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 522 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 309: 21 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 · 215Every 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 Loreto fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 August 2024 and 5 September 2024: 14 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 6,844 hectares (68.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Loreto (6,867 ha, 1.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.