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BO · Bolivia · –

San José fire, 24 July 2026 San Matías, San José

Out · last detection 12 Sept 2026, 05:14 UTC

The fire started on 24 July 2026 in San José, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 51 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,442 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 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:

We are reviewing this page: some of its data look inconsistent (the place, the dates or the area), so treat them with caution.

GWIS near-real-time perimeter, from the layer that changed in October 2025: this fire is not compared with fires from earlier years, because since then the GWIS layer gives more and larger perimeters.

Burnt area
10,442ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
51days
24 Jul 2026 – 12 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
24 Jul
2026
Heat detections
1,805
in a single hotspot: 272 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Average daily power
592MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Jul12 Sept
12 Sept 2026

How it evolved, day by day

24 Jul 2026 · 566 MW · 140 25 Jul 2026 · 166 MW · 84 26 Jul 2026 · 15 MW · 9 27 Jul 2026 · 187 MW · 16 28 Jul 2026 · 217 MW · 13 29 Jul 2026 · 198 MW · 32 30 Jul 2026 · 171 MW · 33 31 Jul 2026 · 117 MW · 37 1 Aug 2026 · 83 MW · 12 3 Aug 2026 · 24 MW · 2 4 Aug 2026 · 55 MW · 24 5 Aug 2026 · 94 MW · 24 6 Aug 2026 · 89 MW · 23 7 Aug 2026 · 3 MW · 3 8 Aug 2026 · 7 MW · 1 9 Aug 2026 · 4 MW · 2 10 Aug 2026 · 1 MW · 1 11 Aug 2026 · 82 MW · 9 13 Aug 2026 · 2 MW · 2 15 Aug 2026 · 52 MW · 3 16 Aug 2026 · 1,215 MW · 26 17 Aug 2026 · 4,951 MW · 122 18 Aug 2026 · 2,190 MW · 60 19 Aug 2026 · 601 MW · 147 21 Aug 2026 · 325 MW · 18 22 Aug 2026 · 963 MW · 45 23 Aug 2026 · 1,127 MW · 98 24 Aug 2026 · 174 MW · 52 25 Aug 2026 · 405 MW · 25 26 Aug 2026 · 819 MW · 71 27 Aug 2026 · 5,432 MW · 187 28 Aug 2026 · 1,041 MW · 145 29 Aug 2026 · 1,350 MW · 109 30 Aug 2026 · 754 MW · 57 31 Aug 2026 · 179 MW · 41 1 Sept 2026 · 94 MW · 21 2 Sept 2026 · 278 MW · 18 3 Sept 2026 · 155 MW · 18 4 Sept 2026 · 1,461 MW · 39 6 Sept 2026 · 3 MW · 3 9 Sept 2026 · 181 MW · 6 10 Sept 2026 · 116 MW · 17 11 Sept 2026 · 87 MW · 9 12 Sept 2026 · 2 MW · 1
24 Jul 3 Aug 13 Aug 27 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

37°high
62km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 21.3 mm on 12 Sept.

This area had burned before

100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 568 ha in 2017, 2,676 ha in 2019, 20,677 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 17,571 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 6.6% of the area of London (104 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
    9,007 ha reached on 24 Jul
    0.3 %
  2. San José 60,359 inhabitants where it started
    9,002 ha reached on 24 Jul
    0.5 %

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 area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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)
24 Jul 34.0 °C 30 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
25 Jul 34.8 °C 28 % 14 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
26 Jul 36.8 °C 23 % 13 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
27 Jul 35.2 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Jul 34.3 °C 38 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
29 Jul 33.5 °C 43 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
30 Jul 34.1 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
31 Jul 34.2 °C 40 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
1 Aug 33.2 °C 40 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
2 Aug 27.2 °C 75 % 32 km/h 2.7 mm Very low 3
3 Aug 29.3 °C 62 % 48 km/h 5.8 mm Very low 2
4 Aug 32.6 °C 39 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
5 Aug 33.7 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
6 Aug 33.8 °C 38 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
7 Aug 32.8 °C 48 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 20
8 Aug 34.8 °C 38 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
9 Aug 34.0 °C 43 % 40 km/h 0.4 mm High 23
10 Aug 29.6 °C 48 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
11 Aug 29.4 °C 41 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
12 Aug 31.6 °C 42 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
13 Aug 33.7 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
14 Aug 34.4 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
15 Aug 35.8 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
16 Aug 37.1 °C 20 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Aug 37.2 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Aug 35.8 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Aug 21.0 °C 60 % 35 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 21
20 Aug 23.7 °C 59 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
21 Aug 29.5 °C 32 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
22 Aug 31.8 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
23 Aug 34.2 °C 19 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
24 Aug 31.7 °C 28 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Aug 35.1 °C 31 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Aug 35.7 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.3 mm High 37
27 Aug 36.5 °C 34 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
28 Aug 36.8 °C 32 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
29 Aug 36.0 °C 36 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Aug 37.2 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
31 Aug 37.3 °C 32 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Sept 27.3 °C 49 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
2 Sept 32.2 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
3 Sept 37.0 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Sept 37.0 °C 32 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Sept 35.0 °C 40 % 33 km/h 10.9 mm Low 6
6 Sept 21.1 °C 45 % 51 km/h 1.9 mm Low 9
7 Sept 25.6 °C 38 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
8 Sept 31.9 °C 40 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
9 Sept 35.3 °C 33 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
10 Sept 35.6 °C 38 % 49 km/h 0.4 mm High 28
11 Sept 37.0 °C 35 % 54 km/h 0.8 mm High 32
12 Sept 26.6 °C 63 % 44 km/h 21.3 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Jul 2026
After · 19 Sept 2026

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 23 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 132 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 77: 5.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak132 µg/m³
Days over the guideline29 days
PM10136 µg/m³
Optical depth1.38
22 Jul1 Aug11 Aug21 Aug31 Aug
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 · 1,805Every 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 24 July 2026 to 12 September 2026 (51 days). The perimeter dates it from 24 July 2026 to 6 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 10,442 hectares (104.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: San Matías (9,007 ha, 0.3 %); San José (9,002 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Area: 17,915 → 10,442 ha.

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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 24 July 2026 to 6 September 2026. 1,805 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.