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Postrervalle fire, November 2022 Postrervalle

Out · last detection 1 Dec 2022, 17:26 UTC

The fire started on 26 November 2022 in Postrervalle, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,524 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 662th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 834 with a page). Number 173 in Bolivia in 2022, of 222.

Burnt area
3,524ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
26 Nov 2022 – 1 Dec 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
26 Nov
2022
Heat detections
217
in a single hotspot: 171 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Dec 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Nov1 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

26272829301

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
40km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.1 mm on 2 Dec.

This area had burned before

100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,972 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,529 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Postrervalle 1,806 inhabitants where it started
    3,546 ha
    3.2 %

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)
26 Nov 37.5 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Nov 37.0 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
28 Nov 37.2 °C 21 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
29 Nov 38.2 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
30 Nov 32.0 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.6 mm High 25
1 Dec 32.4 °C 35 % 40 km/h 8.1 mm Very low 5
2 Dec after 27.2 °C 50 % 40 km/h 3.1 mm Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Nov 2022
After · 8 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 29 November 2022 the air beside the fire reached 87 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 53: 3.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak87 µg/m³
Days over the guideline7 days
PM10124 µg/m³
Optical depth1.54
242526272829301234
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 · 217Every 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 Postrervalle fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 November 2022 and 1 December 2022: 6 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 3,524 hectares (35.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Postrervalle (3,546 ha, 3.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.2 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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

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.