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Padcaya fire, October 2022 Padcaya

Out · last detection 27 Nov 2022, 18:40 UTC

The fire started on 28 October 2022 in Padcaya, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 31 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,918 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 3th largest in Tarija since 2016 (of 12 with a page). Number 69 in Bolivia in 2022, of 222.

Compare with…

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Burnt area
7,918ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
31days
28 Oct 2022 – 27 Nov 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
28 Oct
2022
Heat detections
682
in a single hotspot: 85 MW
Danger at start
19
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
170MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Oct27 Nov
27 Nov 2022

How it evolved, day by day

28 Oct 2022 · 65 MW · 10 29 Oct 2022 · 98 MW · 12 30 Oct 2022 · 131 MW · 18 1 Nov 2022 · 108 MW · 7 2 Nov 2022 · 227 MW · 33 3 Nov 2022 · 81 MW · 30 4 Nov 2022 · 95 MW · 24 5 Nov 2022 · 88 MW · 29 6 Nov 2022 · 13 MW · 11 7 Nov 2022 · 31 MW · 14 8 Nov 2022 · 348 MW · 61 9 Nov 2022 · 120 MW · 26 10 Nov 2022 · 3 MW · 3 11 Nov 2022 · 9 MW · 4 12 Nov 2022 · 183 MW · 30 13 Nov 2022 · 15 MW · 13 15 Nov 2022 · 16 MW · 5 16 Nov 2022 · 57 MW · 22 18 Nov 2022 · 1,224 MW · 116 19 Nov 2022 · 816 MW · 150 20 Nov 2022 · 131 MW · 14 24 Nov 2022 · 5 MW · 1 25 Nov 2022 · 100 MW · 4 26 Nov 2022 · 62 MW · 13 27 Nov 2022 · 212 MW · 32
28 Oct 2 Nov 6 Nov 10 Nov 15 Nov 18 Nov 20 Nov 27 Nov

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
52km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 9.8 mm on 30 Nov.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 10 ha in 2020.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 5% of the area of London (79 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Padcaya 17,341 inhabitants where it started
    7,965 ha reached on 28 Oct
    1.8 %

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 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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.

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)
28 Oct 35.5 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
29 Oct 39.3 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
30 Oct 40.7 °C 23 % 52 km/h 11.6 mm Moderate 15
31 Oct 19.2 °C 30 % 50 km/h 0.9 mm Low 11
1 Nov 22.0 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
2 Nov 25.7 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
3 Nov 27.7 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
4 Nov 29.5 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
5 Nov 31.5 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
6 Nov 33.2 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
7 Nov 34.0 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
8 Nov 34.3 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
9 Nov 36.4 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
10 Nov 36.3 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
11 Nov 34.0 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 17
12 Nov 37.4 °C 23 % 33 km/h 1.8 mm Moderate 19
13 Nov 34.4 °C 32 % 44 km/h 0.3 mm High 23
14 Nov 24.3 °C 55 % 19 km/h 1.7 mm Low 5
15 Nov 33.4 °C 36 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
16 Nov 34.4 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
17 Nov 36.3 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
18 Nov 37.9 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
19 Nov 39.8 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Nov 33.4 °C 36 % 43 km/h 0.7 mm High 25
21 Nov 27.0 °C 53 % 52 km/h 3.5 mm Very low 5
22 Nov 26.1 °C 45 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
23 Nov 35.0 °C 23 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
24 Nov 37.1 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
25 Nov 35.8 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
26 Nov 36.4 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
27 Nov 37.3 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
28 Nov after 35.8 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
29 Nov after 36.4 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
30 Nov after 34.7 °C 36 % 40 km/h 9.8 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Oct 2022
After · 4 Dec 2022

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 19 November 2022 the air beside the fire reached 111 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 74: 4.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak111 µg/m³
Days over the guideline17 days
PM10159 µg/m³
Optical depth1.40
2627282930311234567891011121314151617181920212223
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 · 682Every 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 Padcaya fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 October 2022 to 27 November 2022 (31 days). The perimeter dates it from 28 October 2022 to 20 November 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,918 hectares (79.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Padcaya (7,965 ha, 1.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.7 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

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 28 October 2022 to 20 November 2022. 682 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 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.