For much of August and September 2019, satellites observed large numbers of fires burning in Bolivia’s lowlands. According to one estimate, as much as 5.3 million hectares (13.1 million acres) of Bolivia has burned, an area nearly the size of Costa Rica.
On September 28, 2019, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this natural-color image of smoke streaming south toward Paraguay. Much of the most intense fire activity has been concentrated in the dry Chiquitano and Chaco forests and shrublands of eastern and southern Bolivia. Grasslands in the Beni savanna region to the north and the Pantanal wetlands in eastern Bolivia also have seen large numbers of fires.
While many of the fires have burned in or around areas where land had already been cleared and converted into pasture or cropland, some fires burned deep in natural ecosystems and even national parks and other protected areas. According to one estimate, 24 percent of the San MatÃas Integrated Management Natural Area, 32 percent of Otuquis National Park and Integrated Management Natural Area, and 34 percent of the Ñembi Guasu Area of Conservation and Ecological Importance have burned.
References & Resources
- Amazon Conservation MAAP #107: Seeing the Amazon Fires with Satellites. Accessed October 4, 2019.
- Amazon Conservation MAAP #108: Seeing the Amazon Fires with Satellites Part II. Accessed October 4, 2019.
- Devisscher, T. et al. (2018, September 2) Deliberation for wildfire risk management: Addressing conflicting views in the Chiquitania, Bolivia. The Geographical Journal, 185 (1), 38-54.
- Fast Company South Americaâs second-largest forest is also burning. Accessed October 4, 2019.
- Fundació n Amigos de la Naturaleza (2019, September 25) Reporte de incendios forestales a nivel nacional25 de septiembre de 2019. Accessed October 4, 2019.
- Mongabay (2019, October 1) Fires still being set in blazing Bolivia (commentary). Accessed October 4, 2019.
- Mongabay (2019, September 6) Disaster strikes in Bolivia as fires lay waste to unique forests. Accessed October 4, 2019.
- Muller, R. et al. (2012) Proximate causes of deforestation in the Bolivian lowlands: an analysis of spatial dynamics. Regional Environmental Change, 12, 445.
- SDSN Bolivia (2019, August 30) Playing with fire in Santa Cruz. Accessed October 4, 2019.
- Telesur (2019, October 3) Bolivia Launches Reforestation Plan for Areas Affected by Fires. Accessed October 4, 2019.
- Yale Global Forest Atlas Other ecoregions of South America. Accessed October 4, 2019.
NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS/LANCE and GIBS/Worldview. Story by Adam Voiland.
