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BO · Bolivia · –

San Miguel fire, June 2023 San Miguel

Out · last detection 12 Aug 2023, 05:33 UTC

The fire started on 20 June 2023 in San Miguel, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 54 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,101 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

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.

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

Compare with…

Suggestions: San Ignacio · 2022San Miguel · 2022San Miguel · 2019San Miguel · 2022

Burnt area
7,101ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
54days
20 Jun 2023 – 12 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
20 Jun
2023
Heat detections
1,458
in a single hotspot: 240 MW
Danger at start
6
Low · FWI index
Average daily power
179MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Jun12 Aug
12 Aug 2023

How it evolved, day by day

20 Jun 2023 · 8 MW · 6 21 Jun 2023 · 31 MW · 9 22 Jun 2023 · 48 MW · 17 23 Jun 2023 · 107 MW · 29 24 Jun 2023 · 447 MW · 53 25 Jun 2023 · 107 MW · 38 26 Jun 2023 · 20 MW · 14 27 Jun 2023 · 169 MW · 18 28 Jun 2023 · 201 MW · 59 29 Jun 2023 · 251 MW · 81 30 Jun 2023 · 135 MW · 38 1 Jul 2023 · 69 MW · 28 2 Jul 2023 · 188 MW · 60 3 Jul 2023 · 40 MW · 16 4 Jul 2023 · 2,111 MW · 107 5 Jul 2023 · 283 MW · 76 6 Jul 2023 · 205 MW · 35 7 Jul 2023 · 241 MW · 40 8 Jul 2023 · 101 MW · 10 9 Jul 2023 · 108 MW · 34 10 Jul 2023 · 13 MW · 3 11 Jul 2023 · 136 MW · 19 12 Jul 2023 · 162 MW · 32 13 Jul 2023 · 91 MW · 14 15 Jul 2023 · 18 MW · 4 16 Jul 2023 · 25 MW · 10 17 Jul 2023 · 2 MW · 2 18 Jul 2023 · 344 MW · 23 19 Jul 2023 · 321 MW · 42 20 Jul 2023 · 130 MW · 34 21 Jul 2023 · 124 MW · 29 22 Jul 2023 · 272 MW · 42 23 Jul 2023 · 201 MW · 30 24 Jul 2023 · 53 MW · 10 25 Jul 2023 · 835 MW · 79 26 Jul 2023 · 187 MW · 29 27 Jul 2023 · 12 MW · 10 28 Jul 2023 · 88 MW · 20 29 Jul 2023 · 521 MW · 58 30 Jul 2023 · 298 MW · 69 31 Jul 2023 · 31 MW · 7 1 Aug 2023 · 281 MW · 41 2 Aug 2023 · 60 MW · 22 3 Aug 2023 · 109 MW · 22 4 Aug 2023 · 45 MW · 16 5 Aug 2023 · 3 MW · 2 6 Aug 2023 · 21 MW · 7 7 Aug 2023 · 7 MW · 2 8 Aug 2023 · 2 MW · 1 9 Aug 2023 · 27 MW · 8 10 Aug 2023 · 2 MW · 2 12 Aug 2023 · 1 MW · 1
20 Jun 4 Jul 12 Jul 24 Jul 4 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

34°high
59km/h · peak gust
31%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.0 mm on 13 Aug.

This area had burned before

100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 367 ha in 2017, 566 ha in 2018, 7,708 ha in 2019, 350 ha in 2020, 1,003 ha in 2021, 9,055 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,763 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 4.5% of the area of London (71 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 Miguel 15,329 inhabitants where it started
    10,685 ha reached on 20 Jun
    1.1 %

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)
20 Jun 28.4 °C 54 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
21 Jun 29.0 °C 60 % 48 km/h 0.2 mm Low 8
22 Jun 30.7 °C 55 % 52 km/h 0.3 mm Low 8
23 Jun 30.3 °C 52 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm Low 8
24 Jun 30.8 °C 46 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
25 Jun 30.5 °C 50 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
26 Jun 31.4 °C 47 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
27 Jun 30.5 °C 48 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 11
28 Jun 30.6 °C 45 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
29 Jun 25.2 °C 62 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
30 Jun 29.3 °C 50 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
1 Jul 28.8 °C 47 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
2 Jul 29.0 °C 41 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
3 Jul 30.0 °C 44 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
4 Jul 30.5 °C 38 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
5 Jul 30.5 °C 46 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
6 Jul 30.7 °C 43 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
7 Jul 30.7 °C 47 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
8 Jul 28.6 °C 58 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
9 Jul 29.7 °C 54 % 53 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 18
10 Jul 30.4 °C 54 % 47 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 17
11 Jul 31.5 °C 45 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
12 Jul 31.2 °C 47 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
13 Jul 22.3 °C 65 % 50 km/h 0.9 mm Low 11
14 Jul 20.4 °C 53 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 11
15 Jul 27.4 °C 49 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
16 Jul 28.0 °C 45 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
17 Jul 28.2 °C 50 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
18 Jul 23.1 °C 56 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
19 Jul 23.9 °C 46 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
20 Jul 31.4 °C 40 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
21 Jul 32.5 °C 35 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
22 Jul 31.2 °C 31 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
23 Jul 30.5 °C 38 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
24 Jul 31.5 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
25 Jul 29.1 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
26 Jul 30.6 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
27 Jul 26.7 °C 55 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 20
28 Jul 27.7 °C 56 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
29 Jul 28.0 °C 49 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
30 Jul 31.6 °C 40 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
31 Jul 32.9 °C 42 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
1 Aug 33.9 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
2 Aug 34.1 °C 34 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
3 Aug 34.4 °C 37 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
4 Aug 33.7 °C 36 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
5 Aug 32.6 °C 38 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
6 Aug 32.3 °C 42 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
7 Aug 32.8 °C 46 % 45 km/h 3.8 mm Low 8
8 Aug 30.6 °C 42 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
9 Aug 33.4 °C 39 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
10 Aug 34.0 °C 40 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Aug 33.3 °C 45 % 52 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
12 Aug 24.7 °C 75 % 38 km/h 16.2 mm Very low 0
13 Aug after 17.1 °C 51 % 42 km/h 5.0 mm Very low 1

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 6.1, a minimum humidity of 54% and 5 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 23.

FWI at the start 6.1
Minimum humidity 54 %
Days without rain 5
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

San Ignacio fire, May 2022
3,397 ha 11 days FWI 6.6 Min. humidity 55 % 42 km away, in 2022

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.7 mm on 30 May.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

11 days
median duration
5,389 ha
median area
26 %
went past 10,000 ha
12.0 mm
rain at the end (median; 20 of 23 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (7,101 ha against a median of 5,389 ha) and lasted 54 days, against 11 days.

In 3 of 23, 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 12.0 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

5.0 mmfirst rain
13 Augthe day after it ended
59km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 12 Aug, and on 13 Aug 5.0 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 20 of 23, with a median of 12.0 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 · 13 Jun 2023
After · 19 Aug 2023

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 2 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 107 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 64: 4.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak107 µg/m³
Days over the guideline30 days
PM10153 µg/m³
Optical depth1.04
18 Jun30 Jun12 Jul24 Jul5 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 · 1,458Every 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 Miguel fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 20 June 2023 to 12 August 2023 (54 days). The perimeter dates it from 20 June 2023 to 9 August 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,101 hectares (71.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered San Miguel (10,685 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.4 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, class 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: 23. Their median duration was 11 days and their median area 5,389 ha; 26 % went past 10,000 ha. In 3 of 23, 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 12.0 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Area: 10,645 → 7,101 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 20 June 2023 to 9 August 2023. 1,458 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.