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San Rafael fire, July 2023 San Rafael

Out · last detection 4 Aug 2023, 04:43 UTC

The fire started on 6 July 2023 in San Rafael, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 30 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,004 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 571th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 836 with a page). Number 171 in Bolivia in 2023, of 248.

Compare with…

Suggestions: San Rafael · 2022San Rafael · 2022San Rafael · 2019San Ignacio · 2024

Burnt area
4,004ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
30days
6 Jul 2023 – 4 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
6 Jul
2023
Heat detections
333
in a single hotspot: 133 MW
Danger at start
12
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
106MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Jul4 Aug
4 Aug 2023

How it evolved, day by day

6 Jul 2023 · 64 MW · 12 7 Jul 2023 · 38 MW · 14 8 Jul 2023 · 12 MW · 4 9 Jul 2023 · 17 MW · 3 10 Jul 2023 · 15 MW · 2 11 Jul 2023 · 1 MW · 1 12 Jul 2023 · 24 MW · 3 14 Jul 2023 · 146 MW · 29 17 Jul 2023 · 25 MW · 3 18 Jul 2023 · 71 MW · 14 19 Jul 2023 · 6 MW · 4 20 Jul 2023 · 554 MW · 24 21 Jul 2023 · 177 MW · 16 22 Jul 2023 · 168 MW · 31 23 Jul 2023 · 45 MW · 14 25 Jul 2023 · 65 MW · 13 28 Jul 2023 · 186 MW · 31 29 Jul 2023 · 496 MW · 53 30 Jul 2023 · 71 MW · 19 1 Aug 2023 · 140 MW · 16 2 Aug 2023 · 64 MW · 10 3 Aug 2023 · 49 MW · 10 4 Aug 2023 · 7 MW · 7
6 Jul 10 Jul 17 Jul 20 Jul 21 Jul 28 Jul 2 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
46km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 28 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 13.8 mm on 12 Aug.

This area had burned before

95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 239 ha in 2016, 58 ha in 2017, 133 ha in 2019, 502 ha in 2020, 3,839 ha in 2021, 5,357 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,796 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.5% of the area of London (40 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 Rafael 8,842 inhabitants where it started
    4,023 ha reached on 6 Jul
    0.4 %

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 area0.12 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.12 hectares of 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)
13 Jul 21.9 °C 64 % 44 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 12
14 Jul 20.0 °C 52 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
15 Jul 26.9 °C 48 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
16 Jul 28.8 °C 43 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
17 Jul 27.7 °C 55 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
18 Jul 23.5 °C 57 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
19 Jul 24.4 °C 49 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
20 Jul 31.0 °C 41 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
21 Jul 32.6 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Jul 31.6 °C 28 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
23 Jul 31.0 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Jul 32.1 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Jul 29.5 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Jul 31.1 °C 38 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Jul 27.7 °C 50 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
28 Jul 28.1 °C 57 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
29 Jul 27.8 °C 53 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
30 Jul 31.0 °C 42 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
31 Jul 32.8 °C 41 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
1 Aug 33.9 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
2 Aug 34.1 °C 34 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Aug 34.4 °C 37 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Aug 34.3 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
5 Aug after 33.1 °C 34 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
6 Aug after 32.0 °C 40 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Aug after 34.1 °C 39 % 33 km/h 0.7 mm High 28
8 Aug after 31.4 °C 47 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
9 Aug after 33.2 °C 43 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
10 Aug after 34.8 °C 38 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Aug after 34.4 °C 40 % 55 km/h 0.6 mm High 35
12 Aug after 25.4 °C 71 % 37 km/h 13.8 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Jun 2023
After · 11 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 29 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 94 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 37: 2.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak94 µg/m³
Days over the guideline9 days
PM10135 µg/m³
Optical depth0.89
1112131415161718192021222324252627282930311234567
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 · 333Every 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 Rafael fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 6 July 2023 to 4 August 2023 (30 days). The perimeter dates it from 13 July 2023 to 4 August 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,004 hectares (40.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered San Rafael (4,023 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.4 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.

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. Start date: 13 July 2023 → 6 July 2023.

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.

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.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 13 July 2023 to 4 August 2023. 333 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.