Burned area
satellite only4,192ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 14 Jul 2023 – 9 Aug 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
BO · Bolivia · –
San Matías fire, July 2023 San Matías
Out · last detection 9 Aug 2023, 17:21 UTC
The fire started on 14 July 2023 in San Matías, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,192 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 518th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 784 with a page). Number 161 in Bolivia in 2023, of 247.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-25matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only27days
14 Jul 2023 to 9 Aug 2023: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 9 Aug 2023, 17:21 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only14 Jul 2023
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 14 Jul 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only416
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 80 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP + NOAA-20)
- Date
- 14 Jul 2023 – 9 Aug 2023
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only818MW
Total radiative power on 31 July 2023; hotspots that day: 42.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 31 Jul 2023
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model17.3FWI · moderate
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 28.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 14 Jul 2023, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model36.8°C · 31% RH
High of 36.8 °C and minimum humidity of 31% on 7 August 2023; gusts of 41 km/h on 22 July 2023.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 14 Jul 2023 – 9 Aug 2023
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logLast day with fire: 2 August 2023 → 9 August 2023.
-
logStart date: 21 July 2023 → 14 July 2023.
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
What was saved on 25 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 4,192 ha
- Dates
- 14 Jul 2023 – 9 Aug 2023
- Name
- San Matías
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/san-matias-2023-07?v=2026-10-25A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire san-matias-2023-07.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-07-14 | 2 | 2 | 21.1 | 14.7 | 51 | 13.5 | 32 | 0 | 17.3 | moderado | 1 |
| 2023-07-15 | 7 | 34 | 27.9 | 14.4 | 44 | 8.4 | 21.6 | 0 | 17.4 | moderado | 1 |
| 2023-07-16 | 9 | 21 | 31.2 | 16.3 | 42 | 7.3 | 13.3 | 0 | 17 | moderado | 1 |
| 2023-07-17 | 9 | 102 | 31 | 18.6 | 48 | 11.4 | 20.2 | 0.1 | 19.5 | moderado | 1 |
| 2023-07-18 | 5 | 6 | 26.3 | 18.2 | 53 | 10.6 | 25.9 | 0 | 21.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-07-19 | 3 | 14 | 26.5 | 14.2 | 45 | 9.8 | 23 | 0 | 20.2 | moderado | 1 |
| 2023-07-20 | 2 | 4 | 32.3 | 15.5 | 43 | 8.8 | 20.9 | 0 | 20.7 | moderado | 1 |
| 2023-07-21 | 3 | 24 | 34.8 | 18.4 | 31 | 15.2 | 36.4 | 0 | 35.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-07-22 | 18 | 237 | 33.7 | 20 | 26 | 16.7 | 40.7 | 0 | 44.7 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-07-23 | 21 | 80 | 33.5 | 18.5 | 26 | 15.5 | 37.4 | 0 | 41.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-07-24 | 13 | 245 | 34.6 | 17.8 | 31 | 9.6 | 28.1 | 0 | 37.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-07-25 | 26 | 102 | 33.5 | 17.8 | 31 | 8.4 | 27.4 | 0 | 34.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-07-26 | 20 | 113 | 34.1 | 18.9 | 34 | 7 | 22 | 0 | 31.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-07-27 | 3 | 103 | 30.9 | 20.9 | 47 | 7.7 | 19.8 | 0 | 24.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-07-28 | 27 | 94 | 32.4 | 19.6 | 45 | 13.3 | 26.3 | 0 | 27.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-07-29 | 34 | 377 | 29.5 | 19.3 | 49 | 10 | 22.7 | 0 | 25 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-07-30 | 49 | 94 | 32.7 | 18.8 | 40 | 9 | 23.4 | 0 | 24.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-07-31 | 42 | 818 | 35 | 20.3 | 34 | 10.3 | 27 | 0 | 31.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-01 | 49 | 203 | 35.9 | 20.2 | 30 | 10.5 | 25.6 | 0 | 34.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-02 | 15 | 29 | 36.5 | 20.7 | 29 | 7.6 | 19.8 | 0 | 33.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-03 | 9 | 58 | 36.5 | 19.8 | 30 | 10.9 | 22.7 | 0 | 34 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-04 | 12 | 71 | 36.2 | 20.3 | 30 | 9.9 | 24.5 | 0 | 34.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-05 | 2 | 7 | 35.3 | 20.3 | 29 | 9.8 | 24.8 | 0 | 35.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-06 | 12 | 66 | 35.7 | 21.8 | 31 | 13.3 | 35.3 | 0 | 40.4 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-07 | 11 | 73 | 36.8 | 21.8 | 31 | 10.4 | 30.2 | 0 | 36.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-08 | 4 | 20 | 34.5 | 22.7 | 41 | 9.2 | 19.1 | 0 | 28.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-09 | 9 | 35 | 35.9 | 22.1 | 39 | 7.2 | 22 | 0 | 29.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-10 | 0 | 0 | 37.4 | 22 | 32 | 15.3 | 40.7 | 0 | 38.7 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-08-11 | 0 | 0 | 37.3 | 23.2 | 34 | 17.1 | 42.1 | 0 | 46.2 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-08-12 | 0 | 0 | 27.7 | 22.7 | 63 | 14.7 | 28.1 | 3.2 | 13.8 | moderado | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 4,192ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 27days
- 14 Jul 2023 – 9 Aug 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 14 Jul
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 416
- in a single hotspot: 80 MW
- Danger at start
- 17
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 112MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
14 Jul9 Aug
9 Aug 2023
How it evolved, day by day
14 Jul
20 Jul
26 Jul
31 Jul
7 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
41km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity
It had gone 28 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.2 mm on 12 Aug.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,700 ha in 2019, 2,079 ha in 2021, 5,278 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,174 ha that had burned before.
- 3,420 ha San Rafael fire, July 2019 511,857 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,772 ha San Matías fire, September 2022 7,984 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,079 ha San Matías fire, July 2021 735,668 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
4,201 ha reached on 14 Jul0.2 %
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 2025Built-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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Jul | 21.1 °C | 51 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 15 Jul | 27.9 °C | 44 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 16 Jul | 31.2 °C | 42 % | 13 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 17 Jul | 31.0 °C | 48 % | 20 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 18 Jul | 26.3 °C | 53 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 19 Jul | 26.5 °C | 45 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 20 Jul | 32.3 °C | 43 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 21 Jul | 34.8 °C | 31 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 22 Jul | 33.7 °C | 26 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 23 Jul | 33.5 °C | 26 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 24 Jul | 34.6 °C | 31 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 25 Jul | 33.5 °C | 31 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 26 Jul | 34.1 °C | 34 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 27 Jul | 30.9 °C | 47 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 28 Jul | 32.4 °C | 45 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 29 Jul | 29.5 °C | 49 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 30 Jul | 32.7 °C | 40 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 31 Jul | 35.0 °C | 34 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 1 Aug | 35.9 °C | 30 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 2 Aug | 36.5 °C | 29 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 3 Aug | 36.5 °C | 30 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 4 Aug | 36.2 °C | 30 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 5 Aug | 35.3 °C | 29 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 6 Aug | 35.7 °C | 31 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 7 Aug | 36.8 °C | 31 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 8 Aug | 34.5 °C | 41 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 9 Aug | 35.9 °C | 39 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 10 Aug after | 37.4 °C | 32 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 11 Aug after | 37.3 °C | 34 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 12 Aug after | 27.7 °C | 63 % | 28 km/h | 3.2 mm | Moderate 14 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 17.3, a minimum humidity of 51% and 28 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 39.
FWI at the start
17.3
Minimum humidity
51 %
Days without rain
28
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · San Matías fire, July 2023
4,192 ha
27 days
FWI 17.3
Min. humidity 51 %
San Rafael fire, May 2024
5,170 ha
34 days
FWI 14.0
Min. humidity 54 %
97 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade fire, July 2019
10,929 ha
10 days
FWI 23.2
Min. humidity 52 %
202 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
San José fire, July 2019
5,855 ha
25 days
FWI 16.4
Min. humidity 45 %
125 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.9 mm on 26 Aug.
El Carmen Rivero Tórrez fire, April 2024
4,209 ha
27 days
FWI 15.2
Min. humidity 52 %
208 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
San Ignacio fire, June 2021
4,723 ha
34 days
FWI 13.8
Min. humidity 50 %
161 km away, in 2021
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
What happened to them
- 17 days
- median duration
- 4,483 ha
- median area
- 21 %
- went past 10,000 ha
- 4.5 mm
- rain at the end (median; 22 of 39 had it)
It burned an area similar to its twins (4,192 ha against a median of 4,483 ha) and lasted 27 days, against 17 days.
In 17 of 39, 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 4.5 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
3.2 mmfirst rain
12 Aug3 days after it ended
41km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 9 Aug, and on 12 Aug 3.2 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 22 of 39, with a median of 4.5 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.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 7 Jul 2023
After · 16 Aug 2023
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · CopernicusOn 2 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak23 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1032 µg/m³
Optical depth0.34
WHO 15
19 Jul23 Jul27 Jul31 Jul4 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 · 416Every 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
- 511,857 haSan Rafael22 July 2019 · 76 days · 20 km away
- 13,264 haSan Matías2 August 2019 · 23 days · 20 km away
- 1,128,166 haSan MatíasJune 2024 · 116 days · 34 km away
- 90,233 haSan Ignacio5 August 2021 · 72 days · 34 km away
- 16,181 haSan IgnacioJuly 2026 · 33 days · 35 km away
- 16,705 haSan Ignacio11 July 2025 · 23 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the San Matías fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 July 2023 to 9 August 2023 (27 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 July 2023 to 2 August 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,192 hectares (41.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered San Matías (4,201 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.
- 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: 39. Their median duration was 17 days and their median area 4,483 ha; 21 % went past 10,000 ha. In 17 of 39, 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 4.5 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.
- Last day with fire: 2 August 2023 → 9 August 2023.
- Start date: 21 July 2023 → 14 July 2023.
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
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 21 July 2023 to 2 August 2023. 416 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.
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.