Roboré fire, 5 September 2022 Roboré
The fire started on 5 September 2022 in Roboré, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,031 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 241th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 834 with a page). Number 54 in Bolivia in 2022, of 222.
- Burnt area
- 9,031ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 17days
- 5 Sept 2022 – 21 Sept 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 5 Sept
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 465
- in a single hotspot: 175 MW
- Danger at start
- 25
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 4.5GW
- 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. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 22 Sept.
This area had burned before
86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,891 ha in 2019.
What happened to each town
-
9,095 ha1.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 Sept | 29.6 °C | 26 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 6 Sept | 31.0 °C | 36 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 7 Sept | 37.0 °C | 29 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 8 Sept | 37.1 °C | 28 % | 69 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 9 Sept | 36.3 °C | 29 % | 57 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 10 Sept | 27.0 °C | 37 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 11 Sept | 32.3 °C | 29 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 12 Sept | 35.5 °C | 26 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 13 Sept | 32.7 °C | 29 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 14 Sept | 21.2 °C | 38 % | 45 km/h | 4.4 mm | Low 6 |
| 15 Sept | 23.3 °C | 33 % | 32 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 16 Sept | 31.1 °C | 29 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 17 Sept | 35.9 °C | 23 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 18 Sept | 37.5 °C | 23 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 19 Sept | 37.1 °C | 29 % | 62 km/h | 0.4 mm | Very high 46 |
| 20 Sept | 33.8 °C | 39 % | 31 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 28 |
| 21 Sept | 35.8 °C | 36 % | 46 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 34 |
| 22 Sept after | 24.1 °C | 61 % | 46 km/h | 2.4 mm | Low 8 |
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 111 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 86: 5.8 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 · 465Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 73,444 haRoboré7 August 2019 · 19 days · 19 km away
- 50,246 haRoboréJuly 2024 · 19 days · 19 km away
- 58,084 haEl Carmen Rivero Tórrez30 July 2019 · 27 days · 21 km away
- 14,700 haRoboré4 August 2019 · 16 days · 25 km away
- 9,124 haEl Carmen Rivero TórrezJuly 2026 · 15 days · 33 km away
- 12,210 haRoboré1 August 2021 · 9 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Roboré fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 September 2022 and 21 September 2022: 17 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 9,031 hectares (90.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Roboré (9,095 ha, 1.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 69 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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.