How long did the Riberalta fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 September 2024 and 3 October 2024: 22 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 9,633 hectares (96.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Riberalta (9,706 ha, 0.8 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 39.3 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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.

BO · Bolivia · 2024-09-12 → 2024-10-03

Riberalta fire, 12 September 2024 Riberalta

Out · last detection 2 Oct 2024, 17:46 UTC

The fire started on 12 September 2024 in Riberalta, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,633 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 164th largest in Beni since 2016 (of 902 with a page). Number 84 in Bolivia in 2024, of 295.

Burnt area: 9,633ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 22days; 12 Sept 2024 – 3 Oct 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 12 Sept; 2024
Heat detections: 375; in a single hotspot: 60 MW
Danger at start: 28; High · FWI index
Energy released: 2.2GW; sum of detected power

Play back 2 Oct 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Sept3 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

12131417181920212223242528293012

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

The weather it burned in

39°high

41km/h · peak gust

29%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 10 Oct.

This area had burned before

19% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,382 ha in 2016, 1,277 ha in 2018, 1,009 ha in 2020, 790 ha in 2021, 1,518 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,839 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Riberalta 110,302 inhabitants where it started

9,706 ha

0.8 %

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)
12 Sept	37.5 °C	41 %	32 km/h	0.2 mm	High 28
13 Sept	38.0 °C	35 %	32 km/h	0.2 mm	High 29
14 Sept	38.7 °C	34 %	30 km/h	0.1 mm	High 29
15 Sept	29.3 °C	51 %	33 km/h	0.8 mm	Moderate 19
16 Sept	32.4 °C	38 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
17 Sept	34.7 °C	35 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
18 Sept	36.8 °C	36 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
19 Sept	38.0 °C	36 %	30 km/h	0.1 mm	High 29
20 Sept	38.0 °C	35 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
21 Sept	39.3 °C	29 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
22 Sept	39.1 °C	31 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
23 Sept	38.5 °C	34 %	32 km/h	0.2 mm	High 35
24 Sept	38.7 °C	36 %	31 km/h	0.1 mm	High 34
25 Sept	39.0 °C	32 %	34 km/h	0.1 mm	High 36
26 Sept	36.8 °C	41 %	26 km/h	0.8 mm	High 26
27 Sept	29.0 °C	57 %	41 km/h	6.9 mm	Low 5
28 Sept	35.4 °C	36 %	29 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 18
29 Sept	36.7 °C	36 %	30 km/h	4.1 mm	Low 9
30 Sept	33.9 °C	44 %	34 km/h	0.3 mm	Moderate 19
1 Oct	36.1 °C	38 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
2 Oct	38.5 °C	33 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
3 Oct	35.6 °C	42 %	32 km/h	2.5 mm	Moderate 12
4 Oct after	32.8 °C	45 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
5 Oct after	37.1 °C	35 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
6 Oct after	39.0 °C	32 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
7 Oct after	36.8 °C	43 %	31 km/h	2.2 mm	Moderate 13
8 Oct after	36.8 °C	43 %	38 km/h	0.2 mm	Moderate 21
9 Oct after	36.2 °C	41 %	36 km/h	0.7 mm	High 21
10 Oct after	35.1 °C	45 %	36 km/h	1.2 mm	Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 5 Sept 2024

After · 10 Oct 2024

Before After

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 5 October 2024 the air beside the fire reached 358 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 296: 20 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak358 µg/m³

Days over the guideline26 days

PM10510 µg/m³

Optical depth6.36

WHO 15

101112131415161718192021222324252627282930123456

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 · 375Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Bolivia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Riberalta fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 September 2024 and 3 October 2024: 22 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 9,633 hectares (96.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Riberalta (9,706 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 39.3 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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

Viceministerio de Defensa Civil ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned