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BO · Bolivia · –

San Ignacio fire, 24 September 2022 San Ignacio, Loreto

Out · last detection 27 Sept 2022, 17:46 UTC

The fire started on 24 September 2022 in San Ignacio, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,439 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 498th largest in Beni since 2016 (of 859 with a page). Number 132 in Bolivia in 2022, of 222.

Burnt area
4,439ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
24 Sept 2022 – 27 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
24 Sept
2022
Heat detections
147
in a single hotspot: 201 MW
Danger at start
4
Very low · FWI index
Average daily power
677MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Sept27 Sept
27 Sept 2022

How it evolved, day by day

24 Sept 2022 · 878 MW · 35 25 Sept 2022 · 1,579 MW · 77 26 Sept 2022 · 53 MW · 23 27 Sept 2022 · 198 MW · 12
24 Sept 25 Sept 26 Sept 27 Sept

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
45km/h · peak gust
43%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 17.8 mm on 28 Sept.

This area had burned before

76% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5 ha in 2016, 2 ha in 2018, 2,592 ha in 2019, 1,324 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,395 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.8% of the area of London (44 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 Ignacio 21,584 inhabitants where it started
    4,443 ha reached on 24 Sept
    0.2 %
  2. Loreto 4,269 inhabitants
    19 ha
    0.0 %

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 area0.13 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.13 hectares of 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)
24 Sept 31.5 °C 47 % 31 km/h 2.4 mm Very low 4
25 Sept 35.5 °C 43 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 17
26 Sept 34.5 °C 50 % 41 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 16
27 Sept 34.4 °C 54 % 44 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 16
28 Sept after 32.5 °C 56 % 42 km/h 17.8 mm Moderate 16

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 3.6, a minimum humidity of 47% and 8 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 27.

FWI at the start 3.6
Minimum humidity 47 %
Days without rain 8
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

San Ignacio fire, November 2023
3,069 ha 13 days FWI 5.2 Min. humidity 47 % 88 km away, in 2023

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 22.0 mm on 19 Nov.

What happened to them

12 days
median duration
6,618 ha
median area
22 %
went past 10,000 ha
6.1 mm
rain at the end (median; 27 of 27 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (4,439 ha against a median of 6,618 ha) and lasted 4 days, against 12 days.

All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 6.1 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

17.8 mmfirst rain
28 Septthe day after it ended
45km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 27 Sept, and on 28 Sept 17.8 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 27 of 27, with a median of 6.1 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 · 17 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 26 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 218 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 138: 9.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak218 µg/m³
Days over the guideline9 days
PM10311 µg/m³
Optical depth2.62
22 Sept24 Sept26 Sept28 Sept30 Sept
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 · 147Every 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 24 September 2022 and 27 September 2022: 4 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 4,439 hectares (44.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: San Ignacio (4,443 ha, 0.2 %); Loreto (19 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 43 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 17, 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.
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: 27. Their median duration was 12 days and their median area 6,618 ha; 22 % went past 10,000 ha. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 6.1 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. 147 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.