Urubichá fire, 16 October 2025 Urubichá
The fire started on 16 October 2025 in Urubichá, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,311 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 733th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 834 with a page). Number 85 in Bolivia in 2025, of 94.
- Burnt area
- 3,311ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 11days
- 16 Oct 2025 – 26 Oct 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 16 Oct
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 292
- in a single hotspot: 50 MW
- Danger at start
- 12
- Moderate · FWI index
- Energy released
- 621MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 24.3 mm on 27 Oct.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,135 ha in 2020, 3,504 ha in 2023, 31 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,331 ha that had burned before.
- 2,647 ha Urubichá fire, September 2020 97,033 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,303 ha Urubichá fire, November 2023 22,742 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 31 ha San Ignacio fire, June 2024 4,468,196 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
3,327 ha0.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Oct | 32.4 °C | 51 % | 37 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 17 Oct | 36.6 °C | 38 % | 40 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 18 Oct | 34.2 °C | 46 % | 41 km/h | 20.3 mm | Very low 2 |
| 19 Oct | 28.3 °C | 53 % | 45 km/h | 0.6 mm | Low 6 |
| 20 Oct | 30.2 °C | 49 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 21 Oct | 32.0 °C | 49 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 22 Oct | 32.1 °C | 56 % | 31 km/h | 2.4 mm | Very low 2 |
| 23 Oct | 33.8 °C | 51 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 24 Oct | 34.7 °C | 46 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 25 Oct | 31.3 °C | 57 % | 52 km/h | 3.7 mm | Very low 3 |
| 26 Oct | 31.2 °C | 57 % | 40 km/h | 13.1 mm | Very low 0 |
| 27 Oct after | 23.1 °C | 95 % | 25 km/h | 24.3 mm | Very low 0 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 14 October 2025 the air beside the fire reached 55 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 37: 2.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 292Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Urubichá fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 October 2025 and 26 October 2025: 11 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 3,311 hectares (33.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Urubichá (3,327 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 38 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 17, 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.
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
Satellite cross-check
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
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.