Wildfire near Ascención de Guarayos, Bolivia (2026)

Wildfire near Ascención de Guarayos — Sentinel-2 true color

Wildfire near Ascención de Guarayos — Sentinel-2 SWIR (fuego)

True view Fire view

⟷

True view (left): as the eye sees it.
Fire view (right): infrared (SWIR), sees through smoke and brings out the heat.

🟢 green = vegetation
🟤 brown = already burned
🟠 orange = fire right now

Drag to compare: normal photo on the left, heat brought out on the right.

Green: vegetationBrown: already burnedOrange: fire right nowSentinel-2 · Copernicus

The story so far

Summary written on Sep 18, while the fire was still active. It has since ended — the figures above are current.

Burning actively in Bolivia near the city of Municipio Ascención de Guarayos, a wildfire has scorched 930 hectares, equivalent to 2,298 acres, since its start on September 17, 2026. Satellites are currently picking up a moderate heat signature from the front, while 37 heat detections cluster nearby over the last 48 hours to indicate the current spread of the fire across the landscape during the dry season.

This ongoing incident unfolds within a broader national context where 963,311 hectares have burned so far in 2026, a figure that remains 85 percent below the country's two-decade average.

In context

This wildfire burned in Bolivia for 2 days. In total it burned about 530 ha (1,310 acres) — around 5.3 km². That size is an estimate from satellite hotspots, not a measured area.

Close to the tropics, fires tend to follow the dry season and are often linked to land-clearing rather than a single summer peak.