Magdalena fire, 17 September 2024 Magdalena, Baures, Huacaraje
The fire started on 17 September 2024 in Magdalena, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 18,796 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 60th largest in Beni since 2016 (of 908 with a page). Number 41 in Bolivia in 2024, of 295.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 18,796ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 20days
- 17 Sept 2024 – 6 Oct 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 17 Sept
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 863
- in a single hotspot: 250 MW
- Danger at start
- 25
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 690MW
- 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 38 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.1 mm on 10 Oct.
This area had burned before
86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 9,209 ha in 2016, 5,636 ha in 2017, 1,087 ha in 2019, 9,380 ha in 2020, 8,232 ha in 2021, 9,565 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 16,072 ha that had burned before.
- 7,544 ha Baures fire, July 2016 10,496 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,794 ha Magdalena fire, August 2020 7,517 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,896 ha Baures fire, September 2020 6,029 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,496 ha Baures fire, August 2021 5,616 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,344 ha Baures fire, November 2023 3,449 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,748 ha Magdalena fire, August 2017 4,070 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
-
10,908 ha reached on 17 Sept0.8 %
-
Baures 7,488 inhabitants7,970 ha reached on 21 Sept0.4 %
-
Huacaraje 4,630 inhabitants50 ha0.0 %
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 0.36 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 Sept | 34.4 °C | 41 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 18 Sept | 36.3 °C | 37 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 19 Sept | 36.9 °C | 37 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 20 Sept | 38.2 °C | 35 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 21 Sept | 37.1 °C | 36 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 22 Sept | 38.3 °C | 32 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 23 Sept | 37.9 °C | 34 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 24 Sept | 37.3 °C | 37 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 25 Sept | 38.3 °C | 37 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 26 Sept | 36.7 °C | 40 % | 35 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 36 |
| 27 Sept | 30.9 °C | 44 % | 42 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 35 |
| 28 Sept | 35.2 °C | 34 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 29 Sept | 37.6 °C | 33 % | 22 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 30 |
| 30 Sept | 35.3 °C | 48 % | 34 km/h | 3.1 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 1 Oct | 37.3 °C | 34 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 2 Oct | 37.5 °C | 35 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 3 Oct | 32.9 °C | 46 % | 30 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 30 |
| 4 Oct | 33.1 °C | 43 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 5 Oct | 37.0 °C | 35 % | 15 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 26 |
| 6 Oct | 38.7 °C | 34 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 7 Oct after | 35.8 °C | 43 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 8 Oct after | 37.3 °C | 39 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 9 Oct after | 37.4 °C | 36 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 10 Oct after | 34.4 °C | 48 % | 41 km/h | 4.1 mm | Low 10 |
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 29 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 374 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 231: 15 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 · 863Every 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 Magdalena fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 September 2024 to 6 October 2024 (20 days). The perimeter dates it from 17 September 2024 to 29 September 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 18,796 hectares (188.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Magdalena (10,908 ha, 0.8 %); Baures (7,970 ha, 0.4 %); Huacaraje (50 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.7 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 29 September 2024 → 6 October 2024.
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 17 September 2024 to 29 September 2024. 863 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.