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BO · Bolivia · –

San Andrés fire, 11 August 2021 San Andrés

Out · last detection 24 Aug 2021, 17:27 UTC

The fire started on 11 August 2021 in San Andrés, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,332 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 307th largest in Beni since 2016 (of 859 with a page). Number 63 in Bolivia in 2021, of 155.

Burnt area
6,332ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
11 Aug 2021 – 24 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
11 Aug
2021
Heat detections
399
in a single hotspot: 209 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Average daily power
375MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Aug24 Aug
24 Aug 2021

How it evolved, day by day

11 Aug 2021 · 7 MW · 1 12 Aug 2021 · 69 MW · 10 13 Aug 2021 · 21 MW · 3 14 Aug 2021 · 11 MW · 3 15 Aug 2021 · 107 MW · 9 16 Aug 2021 · 79 MW · 15 17 Aug 2021 · 94 MW · 11 18 Aug 2021 · 1,559 MW · 63 19 Aug 2021 · 1,061 MW · 54 20 Aug 2021 · 1,279 MW · 109 21 Aug 2021 · 145 MW · 25 22 Aug 2021 · 666 MW · 57 23 Aug 2021 · 127 MW · 22 24 Aug 2021 · 28 MW · 17
11 Aug 14 Aug 18 Aug 23 Aug

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
59km/h · peak gust
31%lowest humidity

It had gone 23 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.2 mm on 26 Aug.

This area had burned before

97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,960 ha in 2016, 3,315 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,115 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 4% of the area of London (63 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. San Andrés 15,570 inhabitants where it started
    6,375 ha reached on 11 Aug
    0.6 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
11 Aug 25.3 °C 41 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
12 Aug 25.3 °C 35 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Aug 27.5 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
14 Aug 29.7 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Aug 32.3 °C 34 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
16 Aug 34.1 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
17 Aug 35.1 °C 41 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Aug 36.0 °C 38 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
19 Aug 34.9 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Aug 35.4 °C 38 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
21 Aug 35.0 °C 44 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
22 Aug 35.6 °C 39 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Aug 34.3 °C 51 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
24 Aug 34.1 °C 52 % 59 km/h 2.0 mm Moderate 16
25 Aug after 31.0 °C 57 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
26 Aug after 25.6 °C 60 % 48 km/h 2.2 mm Low 10

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 33.3, a minimum humidity of 41% and 23 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 47.

FWI at the start 33.3
Minimum humidity 41 %
Days without rain 23
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

San Andrés fire, August 2019
3,337 ha 8 days FWI 31.8 Min. humidity 38 % 32 km away, in 2019

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.0 mm on 25 Aug.

What happened to them

11 days
median duration
5,718 ha
median area
19 %
went past 10,000 ha
5.8 mm
rain at the end (median; 44 of 47 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (6,332 ha against a median of 5,718 ha) and lasted 14 days, against 11 days.

In 3 of 47, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 5.8 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

2.2 mmfirst rain
26 Aug2 days after it ended
59km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 24 Aug, and on 26 Aug 2.2 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 44 of 47, with a median of 5.8 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Aug 2021
After · 31 Aug 2021

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 · 399Every 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 San Andrés fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 August 2021 and 24 August 2021: 14 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 6,332 hectares (63.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered San Andrés (6,375 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 47. Their median duration was 11 days and their median area 5,718 ha; 19 % went past 10,000 ha. In 3 of 47, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 5.8 mm.

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 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 399 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.