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Roboré fire, 1 September 2022 Roboré

Out · last detection 13 Sept 2022, 17:07 UTC

The fire started on 1 September 2022 in Roboré, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,708 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 322th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 834 with a page). Number 82 in Bolivia in 2022, of 222.

Burnt area
6,708ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
1 Sept 2022 – 13 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
1 Sept
2022
Heat detections
375
in a single hotspot: 381 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Sept 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Sept13 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1245678910111213

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
72km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 20 Sept.

This area had burned before

65% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,491 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Roboré 18,763 inhabitants where it started
    6,754 ha
    0.9 %

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)
1 Sept 35.1 °C 31 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
2 Sept 30.9 °C 42 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
3 Sept 23.6 °C 45 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
4 Sept 26.1 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
5 Sept 28.8 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
6 Sept 30.3 °C 37 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
7 Sept 35.9 °C 30 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Sept 36.2 °C 30 % 72 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Sept 35.2 °C 32 % 65 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
10 Sept 26.2 °C 38 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
11 Sept 31.5 °C 31 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
12 Sept 34.4 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
13 Sept 31.8 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
14 Sept after 20.9 °C 40 % 44 km/h 3.7 mm Low 6
15 Sept after 23.5 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 14
16 Sept after 30.5 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
17 Sept after 35.3 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
18 Sept after 36.7 °C 24 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Sept after 36.4 °C 30 % 63 km/h 0.6 mm Very high 40
20 Sept after 32.5 °C 42 % 30 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Aug 2022
After · 20 Sept 2022

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 9 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 116 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 88: 5.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak116 µg/m³
Days over the guideline10 days
PM10165 µg/m³
Optical depth2.80
303112345678910111213141516
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 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 1 September 2022 and 13 September 2022: 13 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 6,708 hectares (67.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Roboré (6,754 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 72 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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
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.