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BO · Bolivia · –

Santa Rosa fire, August 2017 Santa Rosa

Out · last detection 27 Aug 2017, 18:05 UTC

The fire started on 25 August 2017 in Santa Rosa, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,691 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 642th largest in Beni since 2016 (of 859 with a page). Number 97 in Bolivia in 2017, of 123.

Burnt area
3,691ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
25 Aug 2017 – 27 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
25 Aug
2017
Heat detections
107
in a single hotspot: 74 MW
Danger at start
16
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
395MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Aug27 Aug
27 Aug 2017

How it evolved, day by day

25 Aug 2017 · 898 MW · 51 26 Aug 2017 · 116 MW · 27 27 Aug 2017 · 170 MW · 29
25 Aug 26 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

36°high
34km/h · peak gust
45%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 31 Aug.

This area had burned before

11% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 415 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.3% of the area of London (37 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. Santa Rosa 2,889 inhabitants where it started
    3,698 ha reached on 25 Aug
    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 2015
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, 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.

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)
25 Aug 35.6 °C 45 % 24 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 16
26 Aug 34.4 °C 51 % 34 km/h 2.0 mm Moderate 16
27 Aug 34.5 °C 52 % 27 km/h 2.4 mm Low 5
28 Aug after 35.9 °C 43 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm Low 6
29 Aug after 36.3 °C 44 % 29 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 13
30 Aug after 36.3 °C 43 % 23 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 14
31 Aug after 34.6 °C 42 % 27 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 17

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 15.8, a minimum humidity of 45% and 4 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 18.

FWI at the start 15.8
Minimum humidity 45 %
Days without rain 4
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Santa Rosa fire, October 2021
4,153 ha 3 days FWI 16.1 Min. humidity 47 % 30 km away, in 2021

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.2 mm on 16 Oct.

What happened to them

10 days
median duration
4,638 ha
median area
17 %
went past 10,000 ha
7.4 mm
rain at the end (median; 18 of 18 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (3,691 ha against a median of 4,638 ha) and lasted 3 days, against 10 days.

All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 7.4 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

1.2 mmfirst rain
31 Aug4 days after it ended
34km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 27 Aug, and on 31 Aug 1.2 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 18 of 18, with a median of 7.4 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 · 18 Aug 2017
After · 3 Sept 2017

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 107Every 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 Santa Rosa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 August 2017 and 27 August 2017: 3 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,691 hectares (36.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Santa Rosa (3,698 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 45 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 16, class Moderate.
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: 18. Their median duration was 10 days and their median area 4,638 ha; 17 % went past 10,000 ha. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 7.4 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 107 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 2015, 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.