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Concepcion fire, 10 September 2017 Concepcion

Out · last detection 13 Sept 2017, 17:43 UTC

The fire started on 10 September 2017 in Concepcion, Paraguay, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,766 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 149th largest in Concepción since 2016 (of 195 with a page). Number 191 in Paraguay in 2017, of 261.

The power measured by the satellite is low (20.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
1,766ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
10 Sept 2017 – 14 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
10 Sept
2017
Heat detections
33
in a single hotspot: 20 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
273MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Sept14 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

10111213

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

35°high
70km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone 20 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 15 Sept.

This area had burned before

5% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 88 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Concepcion where it started
    1,770 ha reached on 10 Sept
    0.2 %

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)
10 Sept 34.9 °C 35 % 70 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Sept 27.6 °C 45 % 50 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 18
12 Sept 31.2 °C 45 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
13 Sept 35.4 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
14 Sept 33.2 °C 42 % 44 km/h 0.3 mm High 28
15 Sept after 25.2 °C 65 % 44 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 13

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Sept 2017
After · 21 Sept 2017

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 33Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Paraguay ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Concepcion fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 September 2017 and 14 September 2017: 5 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 1,766 hectares (17.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Concepcion (1,770 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 70 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Paraguay (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: 132 · 911

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
What do you think is wrong?

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 132 · 911.

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 ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)). 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.