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BO · Bolivia · –

San José fire, 16 July 2024 San Matías, Roboré, San José

Out · last detection 22 Sept 2024, 17:32 UTC

The fire started on 16 July 2024 in San José, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 68 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 544,923 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:

It is the 4th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 784 with a page). Number 3 in Bolivia in 2024, of 295.

Burnt area
544,923ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
68days
16 Jul 2024 – 21 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
16 Jul
2024
Heat detections
84,283
in a single hotspot: 372 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Average daily power
11.4GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Jul21 Sept
22 Sept 2024

How it evolved, day by day

16 Jul 2024 · 0 MW · 0 18 Jul 2024 · 32 MW · 8 19 Jul 2024 · 14 MW · 1 20 Jul 2024 · 80 MW · 8 21 Jul 2024 · 1,392 MW · 32 22 Jul 2024 · 1,297 MW · 120 23 Jul 2024 · 6,304 MW · 335 24 Jul 2024 · 1,654 MW · 50 25 Jul 2024 · 1,606 MW · 169 26 Jul 2024 · 7,711 MW · 358 27 Jul 2024 · 10,801 MW · 643 28 Jul 2024 · 22,719 MW · 908 29 Jul 2024 · 3,050 MW · 600 30 Jul 2024 · 1,487 MW · 412 31 Jul 2024 · 5,498 MW · 438 1 Aug 2024 · 9,047 MW · 725 2 Aug 2024 · 14,454 MW · 1169 3 Aug 2024 · 7,299 MW · 1256 4 Aug 2024 · 9,801 MW · 661 5 Aug 2024 · 20,381 MW · 2271 6 Aug 2024 · 19,081 MW · 1180 7 Aug 2024 · 4,942 MW · 416 8 Aug 2024 · 34 MW · 15 10 Aug 2024 · 6 MW · 2 11 Aug 2024 · 9 MW · 3 12 Aug 2024 · 448 MW · 46 13 Aug 2024 · 871 MW · 87 14 Aug 2024 · 2,814 MW · 254 15 Aug 2024 · 4,318 MW · 614 16 Aug 2024 · 7,949 MW · 895 17 Aug 2024 · 3,346 MW · 533 18 Aug 2024 · 3,669 MW · 201 19 Aug 2024 · 4,402 MW · 572 20 Aug 2024 · 7,013 MW · 1077 21 Aug 2024 · 38,022 MW · 2578 22 Aug 2024 · 16,770 MW · 2483 23 Aug 2024 · 2,552 MW · 611 24 Aug 2024 · 159 MW · 100 26 Aug 2024 · 4,214 MW · 810 27 Aug 2024 · 10,068 MW · 1770 28 Aug 2024 · 15,868 MW · 1342 29 Aug 2024 · 26,602 MW · 2591 30 Aug 2024 · 34,090 MW · 2827 31 Aug 2024 · 31,608 MW · 5489 1 Sept 2024 · 13,019 MW · 3273 2 Sept 2024 · 12,700 MW · 2002 3 Sept 2024 · 23,798 MW · 1783 4 Sept 2024 · 8,746 MW · 2229 5 Sept 2024 · 10,177 MW · 2926 6 Sept 2024 · 13,616 MW · 3231 7 Sept 2024 · 51,603 MW · 3077 8 Sept 2024 · 22,703 MW · 4218 9 Sept 2024 · 55,155 MW · 4966 10 Sept 2024 · 45,934 MW · 6195 11 Sept 2024 · 59,873 MW · 8016 12 Sept 2024 · 8,900 MW · 1748 13 Sept 2024 · 3,185 MW · 549 14 Sept 2024 · 487 MW · 163 17 Sept 2024 · 126 MW · 13 18 Sept 2024 · 535 MW · 50 19 Sept 2024 · 1,487 MW · 68 20 Sept 2024 · 5,192 MW · 484 21 Sept 2024 · 6,973 MW · 1145 22 Sept 2024 · 7,475 MW · 1487
16 Jul 30 Jul 13 Aug 27 Aug 11 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
69km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 52 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.8 mm on 26 Sept.

This area had burned before

38% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,748 ha in 2016, 1,171 ha in 2017, 15,171 ha in 2018, 44,774 ha in 2019, 85,818 ha in 2020, 118,990 ha in 2021, 18,120 ha in 2022, 11,655 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 205,100 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

20 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.4 times the area of London (5,449 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 Matías 13,073 inhabitants
    491,186 ha reached on 18 Jul
    18 %
  2. Roboré 18,763 inhabitants
    46,442 ha reached on 16 Jul
    6.4 %
  3. San José 60,359 inhabitants where it started
    18,086 ha reached on 18 Jul
    0.9 %

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 2025
Built-up area0.98 ha
Residents≈ 70

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.98 hectares of built-up land and about 70 residents (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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)
16 Jul 27.4 °C 35 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
17 Jul 30.0 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
18 Jul 31.3 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Jul 32.0 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Jul 32.4 °C 19 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Jul 32.1 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
22 Jul 30.4 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 Jul 31.7 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Jul 32.9 °C 22 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
25 Jul 32.9 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Jul 32.8 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
27 Jul 33.7 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Jul 33.1 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
29 Jul 27.8 °C 44 % 47 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
30 Jul 24.1 °C 52 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
31 Jul 31.7 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Aug 33.8 °C 27 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
2 Aug 33.8 °C 27 % 65 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
3 Aug 33.3 °C 30 % 69 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
4 Aug 32.2 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 Aug 33.8 °C 29 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
6 Aug 32.8 °C 20 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
7 Aug 33.0 °C 29 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
8 Aug 21.7 °C 76 % 42 km/h 6.0 mm Low 8
9 Aug 11.6 °C 47 % 48 km/h 2.3 mm Very low 3
10 Aug 20.4 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
11 Aug 26.3 °C 21 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
12 Aug 24.3 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
13 Aug 27.5 °C 24 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Aug 31.1 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Aug 34.5 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Aug 35.7 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Aug 35.1 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Aug 34.3 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Aug 35.0 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Aug 35.6 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Aug 35.6 °C 22 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
22 Aug 33.9 °C 33 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
23 Aug 24.5 °C 50 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
24 Aug 19.1 °C 53 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
25 Aug 16.4 °C 38 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Aug 23.0 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Aug 29.3 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Aug 32.2 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Aug 34.9 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
30 Aug 34.0 °C 27 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
31 Aug 33.0 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Sept 25.8 °C 37 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 Sept 32.5 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Sept 34.9 °C 25 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
4 Sept 32.7 °C 32 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
5 Sept 25.3 °C 43 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Sept 31.0 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Sept 35.1 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
8 Sept 36.5 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
9 Sept 36.1 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
10 Sept 35.5 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
11 Sept 35.7 °C 25 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
12 Sept 29.1 °C 46 % 39 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
13 Sept 33.8 °C 37 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Sept 25.2 °C 62 % 39 km/h 3.2 mm Low 10
15 Sept 21.3 °C 62 % 37 km/h 2.2 mm Low 6
16 Sept 25.1 °C 54 % 30 km/h 0.4 mm Low 9
17 Sept 31.1 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
18 Sept 34.8 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
19 Sept 34.9 °C 33 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Sept 36.3 °C 30 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
21 Sept 34.7 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Sept after 36.7 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
23 Sept after 36.1 °C 31 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
24 Sept after 35.6 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
25 Sept after 35.7 °C 35 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
26 Sept after 30.6 °C 47 % 47 km/h 11.8 mm Low 9

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 22.8, a minimum humidity of 35% and 52 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 16.

FWI at the start 22.8
Minimum humidity 35 %
Days without rain 52
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

San José fire, July 2018
3,913 ha 9 days FWI 23.7 Min. humidity 37 % 83 km away, in 2018

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 22.7 mm on 5 Aug.

What happened to them

10 days
median duration
4,263 ha
median area
12 %
went past 10,000 ha
2.8 mm
rain at the end (median; 15 of 16 had it)

It was 127.8 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 68 days, against 10 days.

None of its 16 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 1 of 16, 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 2.8 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

11.8 mmfirst rain
26 Sept5 days after it ended
69km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 21 Sept, and on 26 Sept 11.8 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 15 of 16, with a median of 2.8 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 · 9 Jul 2024
After · 28 Sept 2024

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 4 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 728 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 368: 25 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak728 µg/m³
Days over the guideline54 days
PM101,039 µg/m³
Optical depth7.14
16 Jul29 Jul11 Aug24 Aug6 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 · 84,283Every 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 José fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 July 2024 to 21 September 2024 (68 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 July 2024 to 14 September 2024.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 544,923 hectares (5,449.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: San Matías (491,186 ha, 18 %); Roboré (46,442 ha, 6.4 %); San José (18,086 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 69 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 73, class Very 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.
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: 16. Their median duration was 10 days and their median area 4,263 ha; 12 % went past 10,000 ha. None of its 16 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 1 of 16, 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 2.8 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Start date: 18 July 2024 → 16 July 2024.
  2. Last day with fire: 14 September 2024 → 21 September 2024.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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; 5 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 18 July 2024 to 14 September 2024. 84,283 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 2025, 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.