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Roboré fire, 8 August 2019 Roboré, San José

Out · last detection 25 Aug 2019, 04:42 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2019 in Roboré, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 18,655 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 114th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 834 with a page). Number 34 in Bolivia in 2019, of 219.

Burnt area
18,655ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
18days
8 Aug 2019 – 25 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
8 Aug
2019
Heat detections
685
in a single hotspot: 442 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
11.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Aug 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug25 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

8910111213141516171819202122232425

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
70km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 35 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 27 Aug.

This area had burned before

15% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,885 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Roboré 18,763 inhabitants where it started
    11,813 ha
    1.6 %
  2. San José 60,359 inhabitants
    6,953 ha
    0.4 %

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)
8 Aug 32.2 °C 39 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
9 Aug 31.9 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Aug 24.8 °C 42 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Aug 32.3 °C 27 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Aug 34.5 °C 25 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
13 Aug 25.3 °C 34 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Aug 22.5 °C 28 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Aug 31.4 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Aug 33.1 °C 26 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Aug 34.7 °C 27 % 70 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
18 Aug 33.0 °C 36 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Aug 27.5 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Aug 27.7 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Aug 30.7 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
22 Aug 34.1 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.8 mm High 33
23 Aug 29.9 °C 40 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
24 Aug 34.3 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
25 Aug 34.5 °C 30 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Aug after 32.4 °C 41 % 49 km/h 0.3 mm High 35
27 Aug after 31.7 °C 45 % 35 km/h 2.5 mm Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Aug 2019
After · 1 Sept 2019

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 · 685Every 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 Roboré fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 August 2019 and 25 August 2019: 18 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 18,655 hectares (186.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Roboré (11,813 ha, 1.6 %); San José (6,953 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.7 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 70 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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
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.