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Puerto Suárez fire, July 2017 Puerto Suárez

Out · last detection 13 Jul 2017, 04:36 UTC

The fire started on 4 July 2017 in Puerto Suárez, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,620 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 221th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 834 with a page). Number 18 in Bolivia in 2017, of 123.

Burnt area
9,620ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
4 Jul 2017 – 13 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
4 Jul
2017
Heat detections
357
in a single hotspot: 457 MW
Danger at start
18
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
11.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Jul 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Jul13 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

4578910111213

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
38km/h · peak gust
37%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

5% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 513 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Puerto Suárez 33,006 inhabitants where it started
    9,699 ha
    0.7 %

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)
4 Jul 28.1 °C 48 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
5 Jul 30.4 °C 48 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
6 Jul 29.8 °C 48 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
7 Jul 30.1 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
8 Jul 29.5 °C 45 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
9 Jul 30.5 °C 47 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
10 Jul 31.7 °C 48 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
11 Jul 31.5 °C 45 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
12 Jul 31.2 °C 43 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
13 Jul 32.5 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Jul after 32.5 °C 39 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Jul after 32.6 °C 38 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Jul after 31.2 °C 42 % 58 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 40
17 Jul after 11.9 °C 46 % 51 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 20
18 Jul after 16.5 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
19 Jul after 20.1 °C 37 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
20 Jul after 23.7 °C 41 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
21 Jul after 29.3 °C 42 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
22 Jul after 31.0 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
23 Jul after 33.1 °C 29 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Jun 2017
After · 20 Jul 2017

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 · 357Every 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 Puerto Suárez fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 July 2017 and 13 July 2017: 10 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 9,620 hectares (96.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Puerto Suárez (9,699 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.5 °C, humidity dropped to 37 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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.