How long did the Urubichá fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 September 2022 and 28 September 2022: 14 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 17,271 hectares (172.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Urubichá (16,926 ha, 1.0 %); Concepción (500 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 50 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.

BO · Bolivia · 2022-09-15 → 2022-09-28

Urubichá fire, 15 September 2022 Urubichá, Concepción

Out · last detection 28 Sept 2022, 04:55 UTC

The fire started on 15 September 2022 in Urubichá, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 17,271 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 124th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 834 with a page). Number 20 in Bolivia in 2022, of 222.

Burnt area: 17,271ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 14days; 15 Sept 2022 – 28 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 15 Sept; 2022
Heat detections: 1,620; in a single hotspot: 108 MW
Danger at start: 28; High · FWI index
Energy released: 6.2GW; sum of detected power

Play back 28 Sept 2022

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Sept28 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

15161718192021222425262728

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

50km/h · peak gust

31%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 22.9 mm on 6 Oct.

This area had burned before

15% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,993 ha in 2019, 196 ha in 2020, 474 ha in 2021.

1 ha Concepción fire, September 2021 76,754 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Urubichá 6,555 inhabitants where it started

16,926 ha

1.0 %
Concepción 93,392 inhabitants

500 ha

0.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

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)
9 Sept	34.4 °C	38 %	38 km/h	0.4 mm	High 28
10 Sept	26.4 °C	37 %	39 km/h	1.3 mm	Moderate 18
11 Sept	30.6 °C	39 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
12 Sept	33.0 °C	40 %	36 km/h	0.3 mm	High 22
13 Sept	31.8 °C	44 %	35 km/h	1.2 mm	Moderate 17
14 Sept	23.7 °C	40 %	50 km/h	0.6 mm	High 24
15 Sept	26.5 °C	34 %	44 km/h	0.1 mm	High 27
16 Sept	31.5 °C	34 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
17 Sept	34.6 °C	32 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
18 Sept	35.9 °C	31 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
19 Sept	35.5 °C	40 %	48 km/h	0.1 mm	High 32
20 Sept	33.6 °C	48 %	45 km/h	0.7 mm	High 22
21 Sept	34.6 °C	40 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
22 Sept	27.9 °C	57 %	50 km/h	0.5 mm	High 26
23 Sept	26.7 °C	43 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
24 Sept	33.5 °C	35 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
25 Sept	35.2 °C	37 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
26 Sept	36.2 °C	37 %	40 km/h	1.0 mm	High 26
27 Sept	34.5 °C	41 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
28 Sept	31.3 °C	49 %	46 km/h	9.1 mm	Low 6
29 Sept after	20.8 °C	62 %	48 km/h	2.3 mm	Low 6
30 Sept after	27.0 °C	57 %	32 km/h	0.3 mm	Low 8
1 Oct after	32.8 °C	41 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
2 Oct after	34.0 °C	41 %	20 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 20
3 Oct after	34.3 °C	41 %	22 km/h	0.9 mm	Moderate 18
4 Oct after	34.2 °C	48 %	37 km/h	2.4 mm	Low 10
5 Oct after	33.5 °C	47 %	49 km/h	2.9 mm	Low 8
6 Oct after	32.5 °C	46 %	52 km/h	22.9 mm	Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 8 Sept 2022

After · 5 Oct 2022

Before After

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 17 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 218 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 119: 7.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak218 µg/m³

Days over the guideline17 days

PM10312 µg/m³

Optical depth2.05

WHO 15

1314151617181920212223242526272829301

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 · 1,620Every 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

All fires in Bolivia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Urubichá fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 September 2022 and 28 September 2022: 14 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 17,271 hectares (172.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Urubichá (16,926 ha, 1.0 %); Concepción (500 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 50 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.

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

Viceministerio de Defensa Civil ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What really happened?

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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.

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.

Where it burned