Wildfires have burned thousands of hectares of forest and savanna in the Chacobo-Pacahuara Indigenous territory in the Beni department of northern Bolivia, according to satellite imagery and on-the-ground sources. The fires likely resulted from illegal burns in pastures surrounding the Indigenous territory.
The fires hit Chacobo-Pacahuara in September and October 2025, the third consecutive year of unusually high fire activity in the Indigenous land, according to the most recent data released by Global Forest Watch, a platform that uses satellite data to track forest loss worldwide.
The flames consumed Indigenous subsistence crops and homes. Locals also expressed worry for the safety of isolated Indigenous communities.
“We have Indigenous relatives who live in voluntary isolation, and we do not know what has happened to them because the forest and the forest islands where they lived burned,” Constantino Toledo Ortiz, a leader of the Chácobo people, told Mongabay in a voice message. “We think they may have crossed into Brazil.”
According to a bulletin published by the Center for Legal Studies and Social Research (CEJIS), 1,141 heat hotspots, typically caused by fire, were recorded in the territory between Jan. 1 and Sept. 12, 2025. CEJIS recorded an additional 845 heat hotspots between Sept. 29 and Oct. 16, 2025. The sharp increase is in line with the Bolivian Amazon’s typical fire season, which usually peaks around August and September when the climate is at its driest.
Chacobo-Pacahuara was the most affected Indigenous territory in the Bolivian Amazon in 2025.
In 2024, the same organization reported that 47% of the territory was burned by fire between January and October 2024, or 228,348 hectares (564,260 acres) of the territory’s 485,260 hectares (1.2 million acres).
Ortiz told Mongabay that the fires originated from cattle pastures surrounding the territory, which spread into the protected area. Before 2023, the Chacobo-Pacahuara territory recorded stable, low fire activity. Satellite data analyzed by Mongabay show that fire alerts almost doubled between 2022 and 2023, then reached a record high in 2024.
“In 2023 and 2024, the forest and the savanna burned one after the other … We felt very, very sad because homes were lost. Houses burned down. Our fields burned. Cassava, banana, corn, and rice crops burned. Everything burned completely. It was a very serious ordeal,” Ortiz said.
“The forest provides our food,” he said. “The animals also burned. The monkeys, wild pigs, tapirs, and birds were burned.”
According to Ortiz, the community leaders reported the fire and impacts to the authorities, including the municipal leaders and governor, but said they have not received any assistance.
Mongabay contacted the Beni departmental government, the Riberalta municipal government and Bolivia’s Forest and Land Control and Social Authority (ABT) for comment. None responded by the time of publication.
Banner image: Fire in the Chiquitania forest in the south of Bolivia, September 2024. Image © Juan Karita/AP photo.
