Skip to content
worldfires
BO · Bolivia · →

Roboré fire, 16 September 2022 Roboré

Out · last detection 28 Sept 2022, 04:55 UTC

The fire started on 16 September 2022 in Roboré, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,399 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 515th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 834 with a page). Number 135 in Bolivia in 2022, of 222.

Burnt area
4,399ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
16 Sept 2022 – 27 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
16 Sept
2022
Heat detections
430
in a single hotspot: 68 MW
Danger at start
20
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
1.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Sept 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Sept27 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

161718192021222425262728

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
62km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.6 mm on 28 Sept.

This area had burned before

4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 208 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 167 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Roboré 18,763 inhabitants where it started
    4,415 ha
    0.6 %

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)
16 Sept 30.8 °C 31 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
17 Sept 34.4 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
18 Sept 35.6 °C 29 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
19 Sept 35.3 °C 34 % 62 km/h 0.4 mm High 36
20 Sept 33.0 °C 43 % 35 km/h 0.4 mm High 25
21 Sept 34.9 °C 36 % 55 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
22 Sept 24.5 °C 67 % 51 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 19
23 Sept 28.0 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
24 Sept 30.3 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
25 Sept 34.5 °C 34 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
26 Sept 36.3 °C 35 % 44 km/h 1.9 mm Moderate 20
27 Sept 33.2 °C 42 % 49 km/h 0.3 mm High 23
28 Sept after 26.8 °C 67 % 49 km/h 2.6 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Sept 2022
After · 4 Oct 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 21 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 95 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 62: 4.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak95 µg/m³
Days over the guideline11 days
PM10136 µg/m³
Optical depth1.65
1415161718192021222324252627282930
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 · 430Every 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 16 September 2022 and 27 September 2022: 12 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 4,399 hectares (44.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Roboré (4,415 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 62 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

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.