Puerto Suárez fire, June 2024 Puerto Suárez
The fire started on 11 June 2024 in Puerto Suárez, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,380 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 145th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 834 with a page). Number 51 in Bolivia in 2024, of 295.
- Burnt area
- 15,380ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 11 Jun 2024 – 14 Jun 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 11 Jun
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 404
- in a single hotspot: 436 MW
- Danger at start
- 35
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 7.0GW
- 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 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 10,788 ha in 2016, 17,351 ha in 2019, 1,968 ha in 2020, 2,870 ha in 2021, 47 ha in 2022, 2,221 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 14,354 ha that had burned before.
- 8,518 ha Puerto Suárez fire, June 2019 24,785 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,239 ha Puerto Suárez fire, September 2016 10,885 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,304 ha Puerto Suárez fire, October 2019 5,745 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,202 ha Puerto Suárez fire, October 2019 4,537 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,595 ha Corumbá fire, September 2016 9,356 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,540 ha Puerto Suárez fire, October 2016 3,928 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,153 ha Puerto Suárez fire, August 2023 3,159 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 339 ha Puerto Suárez fire, July 2020 40,736 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
15,103 ha1.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 Jun | 35.4 °C | 32 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 12 Jun | 35.3 °C | 27 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 13 Jun | 35.5 °C | 26 % | 61 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 14 Jun | 35.3 °C | 32 % | 62 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 15 Jun after | 34.5 °C | 37 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 16 Jun after | 34.7 °C | 36 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 17 Jun after | 34.3 °C | 38 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 18 Jun after | 35.4 °C | 34 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 19 Jun after | 35.6 °C | 36 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 20 Jun after | 35.8 °C | 30 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 21 Jun after | 35.8 °C | 26 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 22 Jun after | 36.0 °C | 29 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 23 Jun after | 36.0 °C | 30 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 24 Jun after | 34.9 °C | 36 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
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 11 June 2024 the air beside the fire reached 74 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 31: 2.1 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 · 404Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Puerto Suárez fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 June 2024 and 14 June 2024: 4 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 15,380 hectares (153.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Puerto Suárez (15,103 ha, 1.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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
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.