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Pailón fire, October 2020 Pailón

Out · last detection 8 Nov 2020, 17:44 UTC

The fire started on 27 October 2020 in Pailón, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,778 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 319th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 834 with a page). Number 79 in Bolivia in 2020, of 211.

Burnt area
6,778ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
27 Oct 2020 – 8 Nov 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
27 Oct
2020
Heat detections
360
in a single hotspot: 290 MW
Danger at start
5
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
5.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Nov 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Oct8 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

2728303112345678

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
68km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 16 Nov.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Pailón 54,495 inhabitants where it started
    6,824 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)
27 Oct 32.8 °C 50 % 30 km/h 2.6 mm Very low 5
28 Oct 37.0 °C 36 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Oct 29.8 °C 55 % 67 km/h 2.7 mm Moderate 11
30 Oct 31.5 °C 29 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
31 Oct 33.3 °C 23 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Nov 35.6 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Nov 36.9 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
3 Nov 39.4 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Nov 40.1 °C 12 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
5 Nov 40.3 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Nov 40.7 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Nov 41.2 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Nov 40.4 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Nov after 33.3 °C 50 % 57 km/h 3.1 mm Moderate 14
10 Nov after 34.0 °C 45 % 54 km/h 4.8 mm Low 8
11 Nov after 34.9 °C 39 % 57 km/h 2.3 mm Moderate 14
12 Nov after 32.3 °C 53 % 44 km/h 17.6 mm Very low 2
13 Nov after 35.4 °C 45 % 42 km/h 2.1 mm Very low 5
14 Nov after 38.3 °C 33 % 65 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
15 Nov after 38.5 °C 34 % 68 km/h 0.4 mm High 24
16 Nov after 36.9 °C 40 % 38 km/h 1.7 mm Low 11

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Oct 2020
After · 15 Nov 2020

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 · 360Every 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 27 October 2020 and 8 November 2020: 13 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 6,778 hectares (67.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pailón (6,824 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.2 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 68 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.