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Pailón fire, August 2019 Pailón, San José

Out · last detection 8 Aug 2019, 05:01 UTC

The fire started on 1 August 2019 in Pailón, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,025 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 826th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 834 with a page). Number 218 in Bolivia in 2019, of 219.

Burnt area
3,025ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
1 Aug 2019 – 8 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
1 Aug
2019
Heat detections
102
in a single hotspot: 99 MW
Danger at start
64
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Aug 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Aug8 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

12345678

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
69km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 27 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

18% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 456 ha in 2016, 68 ha in 2017, 65 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 532 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Pailón 54,495 inhabitants where it started
    3,040 ha
    0.2 %
  2. San José 60,359 inhabitants
    1 ha
    0.0 %

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)
1 Aug 36.0 °C 21 % 68 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
2 Aug 24.5 °C 23 % 69 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
3 Aug 24.5 °C 11 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
4 Aug 25.8 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
5 Aug 29.9 °C 9 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Aug 34.5 °C 19 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
7 Aug 36.0 °C 24 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
8 Aug 35.3 °C 32 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
9 Aug after 33.9 °C 31 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Aug after 27.2 °C 32 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Aug after 35.8 °C 26 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
12 Aug after 37.5 °C 22 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
13 Aug after 29.0 °C 25 % 63 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
14 Aug after 25.8 °C 14 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
15 Aug after 33.8 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Aug after 37.0 °C 21 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
17 Aug after 37.0 °C 25 % 73 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
18 Aug after 35.8 °C 31 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Jul 2019
After · 15 Aug 2019

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 102Every 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 Pailón fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 August 2019 and 8 August 2019: 8 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 3,025 hectares (30.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Pailón (3,040 ha, 0.2 %); San José (1 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 69 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, class Extreme.
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.