Skip to content
worldfires
BO · Bolivia · →

San Ignacio fire, August 2017 San Ignacio

Out · last detection 4 Sept 2017, 17:14 UTC

The fire started on 29 August 2017 in San Ignacio, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,633 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 368th largest in Beni since 2016 (of 902 with a page). Number 49 in Bolivia in 2017, of 123.

Burnt area
5,633ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
29 Aug 2017 – 4 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
29 Aug
2017
Heat detections
161
in a single hotspot: 60 MW
Danger at start
17
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
2.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Aug4 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

2930311234

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
37km/h · peak gust
40%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 5 Sept.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 59 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. San Ignacio 21,584 inhabitants where it started
    5,642 ha
    0.2 %

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)
29 Aug 36.5 °C 40 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
30 Aug 36.7 °C 44 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
31 Aug 32.2 °C 41 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
1 Sept 35.9 °C 40 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
2 Sept 35.9 °C 42 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
3 Sept 36.4 °C 46 % 37 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 15
4 Sept 36.1 °C 49 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
5 Sept after 29.9 °C 52 % 40 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Aug 2017
After · 11 Sept 2017

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 · 161Every 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 Ignacio fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 August 2017 and 4 September 2017: 7 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 5,633 hectares (56.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered San Ignacio (5,642 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 40 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, class Moderate.
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.