Roboré fire, July 2024 Roboré, Charagua, El Carmen Rivero Tórrez
The fire started on 20 July 2024 in Roboré, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 50,246 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 41th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 834 with a page). Number 9 in Bolivia in 2024, of 295.
- Burnt area
- 50,246ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 19days
- 20 Jul 2024 – 7 Aug 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 20 Jul
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 1,750
- in a single hotspot: 569 MW
- Danger at start
- 37
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 50.1GW
- 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 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 30.4 mm on 8 Aug.
This area had burned before
82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 180 ha in 2017, 354 ha in 2018, 37,874 ha in 2019, 11,367 ha in 2021, 4,446 ha in 2022, 573 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 41,135 ha that had burned before.
- 36,779 ha El Carmen Rivero Tórrez fire, July 2019 58,084 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 8,109 ha Roboré fire, August 2021 12,210 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,410 ha Roboré fire, September 2022 9,031 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
49,528 ha6.8 %
-
Charagua 101,733 inhabitants883 ha0.0 %
-
El Carmen Rivero Tórrez 8,816 inhabitants210 ha0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 Jul | 32.8 °C | 19 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 21 Jul | 33.5 °C | 21 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 22 Jul | 29.7 °C | 31 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 23 Jul | 32.0 °C | 23 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 24 Jul | 32.6 °C | 23 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 25 Jul | 34.0 °C | 26 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 26 Jul | 34.5 °C | 25 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 27 Jul | 35.9 °C | 20 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 28 Jul | 34.4 °C | 20 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 29 Jul | 27.1 °C | 39 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 30 Jul | 24.4 °C | 52 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 31 Jul | 32.7 °C | 33 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 1 Aug | 34.9 °C | 23 % | 59 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 2 Aug | 34.8 °C | 24 % | 66 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 3 Aug | 34.8 °C | 28 % | 70 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 4 Aug | 33.0 °C | 37 % | 43 km/h | 0.8 mm | High 30 |
| 5 Aug | 34.6 °C | 25 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 6 Aug | 34.0 °C | 21 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 7 Aug | 34.1 °C | 27 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 8 Aug after | 21.7 °C | 76 % | 37 km/h | 30.4 mm | Very low 0 |
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 25 July 2024 the air beside the fire reached 169 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 84: 5.6 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 · 1,750Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 58,084 haEl Carmen Rivero Tórrez30 July 2019 · 27 days · 3 km away
- 12,210 haRoboré1 August 2021 · 9 days · 17 km away
- 9,124 haEl Carmen Rivero TórrezJuly 2026 · 15 days · 28 km away
- 11,199 haEl Carmen Rivero Tórrez10 July 2020 · 34 days · 31 km away
- 73,444 haRoboré7 August 2019 · 19 days · 32 km away
- 10,202 haEl Carmen Rivero Tórrez15 September 2019 · 10 days · 33 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Roboré fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 July 2024 and 7 August 2024: 19 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 50,246 hectares (502.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Roboré (49,528 ha, 6.8 %); Charagua (883 ha, 0.0 %); El Carmen Rivero Tórrez (210 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.9 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 70 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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
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.