Puerto Suárez fire, 3 September 2022 Puerto Suárez
The fire started on 3 September 2022 in Puerto Suárez, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,289 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 175th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 834 with a page). Number 34 in Bolivia in 2022, of 222.
- Burnt area
- 12,289ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 8days
- 3 Sept 2022 – 10 Sept 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 3 Sept
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 393
- in a single hotspot: 223 MW
- Danger at start
- 25
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 7.8GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.5 mm on 14 Sept.
This area had burned before
86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 8,772 ha in 2017, 6,985 ha in 2019, 1,130 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,521 ha that had burned before.
- 4,347 ha Puerto Suárez fire, August 2019 151,193 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,913 ha Puerto Suárez fire, September 2017 3,796 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,821 ha Puerto Suárez fire, August 2017 5,995 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 721 ha Corumbá fire, July 2020 5,420 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 236 ha Puerto Suárez fire, July 2017 9,620 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 186 ha Corumbá fire, September 2017 13,368 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
12,386 ha0.9 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Sept | 26.1 °C | 46 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 4 Sept | 27.6 °C | 37 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 5 Sept | 29.7 °C | 39 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 6 Sept | 31.1 °C | 43 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 7 Sept | 37.9 °C | 28 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 8 Sept | 39.0 °C | 25 % | 62 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 9 Sept | 39.6 °C | 24 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 10 Sept | 27.0 °C | 42 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 11 Sept after | 31.7 °C | 33 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 12 Sept after | 36.1 °C | 27 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 13 Sept after | 32.5 °C | 33 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 14 Sept after | 20.8 °C | 54 % | 36 km/h | 6.5 mm | Very low 3 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 9 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 114 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 80: 5.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 393Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 20,692 haPuerto Suárez5 August 2024 · 3 days · 3 km away
- 13,368 haCorumbá2 September 2017 · 8 days · 13 km away
- 151,193 haPuerto Suárez19 August 2019 · 8 days · 18 km away
- 12,123 haPuerto Suárez9 November 2025 · 3 days · 26 km away
- 15,983 haPuerto SuárezDecember 2016 · 17 days · 31 km away
- 23,880 haPuerto Suárez8 September 2017 · 7 days · 32 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Puerto Suárez fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 September 2022 and 10 September 2022: 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 12,289 hectares (122.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Puerto Suárez (12,386 ha, 0.9 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.6 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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
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.