How long did the San José fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 July 2019 to 20 August 2019 (25 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 July 2019 to 14 August 2019.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,855 hectares (58.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: San Matías (4,307 ha, 0.2 %); San José (1,531 ha, 0.1 %); Roboré (58 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 70 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, class Very 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.

BO · Bolivia · 2019-07-27 → 2019-08-20

San José fire, July 2019 San Matías, San José, Roboré

Out · last detection 20 Aug 2019, 17:07 UTC

The fire started on 27 July 2019 in San José, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,855 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 376th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 836 with a page). Number 102 in Bolivia in 2019, of 219.

Compare with…

Suggestions: San José · 2024 San José · 2024 San José · 2026 San Matías · 2020

Burnt area: 5,855ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 25days; 27 Jul 2019 – 20 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit: 3; municipalities
Started on: 27 Jul; 2019
Heat detections: 250; in a single hotspot: 31 MW
Danger at start: 20; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 56MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Jul20 Aug

Play back 20 Aug 2019

How it evolved, day by day

27 Jul 31 Jul 2 Aug 4 Aug 8 Aug 13 Aug 18 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

35°high

70km/h · peak gust

26%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.9 mm on 26 Aug.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 3.7% of the area of London (59 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

San Matías 13,073 inhabitants

4,307 ha reached on 1 Aug

0.2 %
San José 60,359 inhabitants where it started

1,531 ha reached on 27 Jul

0.1 %
Roboré 18,763 inhabitants

58 ha reached on 31 Jul

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 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)
27 Jul	26.7 °C	45 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
28 Jul	29.7 °C	44 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
29 Jul	32.2 °C	37 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
30 Jul	33.4 °C	37 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
31 Jul	33.6 °C	35 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
1 Aug	34.2 °C	30 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
2 Aug	23.3 °C	39 %	70 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
3 Aug	21.9 °C	28 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
4 Aug	24.2 °C	26 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
5 Aug	28.0 °C	35 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
6 Aug	31.1 °C	37 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
7 Aug	34.0 °C	37 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
8 Aug	33.6 °C	41 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
9 Aug	33.5 °C	33 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
10 Aug	28.1 °C	42 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
11 Aug	32.9 °C	35 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
12 Aug	35.4 °C	28 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
13 Aug	26.9 °C	37 %	62 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
14 Aug	25.0 °C	34 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
15 Aug	31.5 °C	38 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
16 Aug	33.9 °C	31 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
17 Aug	35.4 °C	31 %	59 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
18 Aug	34.8 °C	37 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
19 Aug	30.3 °C	43 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
20 Aug	30.8 °C	39 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
21 Aug after	33.5 °C	36 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
22 Aug after	35.4 °C	38 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
23 Aug after	32.3 °C	42 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
24 Aug after	34.9 °C	33 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
25 Aug after	35.1 °C	34 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
26 Aug after	32.0 °C	46 %	39 km/h	2.9 mm	Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 20 Jul 2019

After · 27 Aug 2019

Before After

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 · 250Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Bolivia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the San José fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 July 2019 to 20 August 2019 (25 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 July 2019 to 14 August 2019.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,855 hectares (58.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: San Matías (4,307 ha, 0.2 %); San José (1,531 ha, 0.1 %); Roboré (58 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 70 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, class Very 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Viceministerio de Defensa Civil ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

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What really happened?

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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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 27 July 2019 to 14 August 2019. 250 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.

Where it burned