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Loreto fire, 5 September 2024 Loreto, San Andrés

Out · last detection 8 Oct 2024, 17:32 UTC

The fire started on 5 September 2024 in Loreto, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 34 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 36,765 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 16th largest in Beni since 2016 (of 902 with a page). Number 14 in Bolivia in 2024, of 295.

Burnt area
36,765ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
34days
5 Sept 2024 – 8 Oct 2024
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
5 Sept
2024
Heat detections
1,973
in a single hotspot: 291 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
24.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Oct 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Sept8 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

567891011121314171819202122232425272829301245678

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
56km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 15.1 mm on 16 Oct.

This area had burned before

28% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,539 ha in 2016, 217 ha in 2017, 2,454 ha in 2018, 4,584 ha in 2019, 5 ha in 2020, 1,353 ha in 2021, 6,440 ha in 2022, 1,982 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,242 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Loreto 4,269 inhabitants where it started
    31,807 ha
    4.6 %
  2. San Andrés 15,570 inhabitants
    5,171 ha
    0.5 %

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)
29 Aug 36.5 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
30 Aug 37.3 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
31 Aug 35.9 °C 31 % 34 km/h 2.6 mm Moderate 19
1 Sept 28.7 °C 36 % 45 km/h 0.8 mm High 23
2 Sept 32.9 °C 31 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
3 Sept 36.5 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 Sept 37.4 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 Sept 31.7 °C 28 % 56 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 43
6 Sept 33.2 °C 26 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
7 Sept 36.0 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Sept 36.9 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Sept 37.1 °C 28 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
10 Sept 37.4 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Sept 36.9 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Sept 32.2 °C 58 % 34 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 13
13 Sept 35.0 °C 47 % 41 km/h 0.4 mm High 24
14 Sept 29.0 °C 48 % 52 km/h 7.6 mm Low 8
15 Sept 20.8 °C 66 % 41 km/h 33.3 mm Very low 0
16 Sept 29.3 °C 42 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
17 Sept 31.9 °C 44 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
18 Sept 34.9 °C 43 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
19 Sept 36.2 °C 36 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
20 Sept 36.2 °C 41 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
21 Sept 36.3 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 20
22 Sept 38.4 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
23 Sept 38.5 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
24 Sept 37.3 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
25 Sept 35.1 °C 43 % 40 km/h 2.5 mm Moderate 12
26 Sept 33.5 °C 54 % 42 km/h 19.2 mm Very low 3
27 Sept 30.2 °C 39 % 42 km/h 0.7 mm Low 11
28 Sept 33.3 °C 40 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
29 Sept 36.0 °C 38 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
30 Sept 36.7 °C 40 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
1 Oct 37.2 °C 35 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
2 Oct 37.1 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 20
3 Oct 33.8 °C 27 % 42 km/h 3.4 mm Moderate 13
4 Oct 35.8 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
5 Oct 38.1 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
6 Oct 37.7 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
7 Oct 36.5 °C 41 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
8 Oct 35.1 °C 47 % 46 km/h 3.8 mm Low 7
9 Oct after 29.6 °C 76 % 32 km/h 7.0 mm Very low 0
10 Oct after 33.1 °C 48 % 50 km/h 0.1 mm Low 7
11 Oct after 31.7 °C 57 % 37 km/h 8.8 mm Very low 1
12 Oct after 35.0 °C 46 % 40 km/h 0.4 mm Low 8
13 Oct after 37.8 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 15
14 Oct after 31.9 °C 57 % 24 km/h 0.3 mm Low 10
15 Oct after 35.8 °C 43 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
16 Oct after 32.1 °C 53 % 41 km/h 15.1 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Aug 2024
After · 15 Oct 2024

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 5 October 2024 the air beside the fire reached 726 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 423: 28 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak726 µg/m³
Days over the guideline46 days
PM101,039 µg/m³
Optical depth5.84
27282930311234567891011121314151617181920212223242526272829301234567891011
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 · 1,973Every 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 Loreto fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 September 2024 and 8 October 2024: 34 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 36,765 hectares (367.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Loreto (31,807 ha, 4.6 %); San Andrés (5,171 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.5 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 56 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
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.

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.