How long did the Concepción fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 August 2019 and 24 September 2019: 26 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 30,116 hectares (301.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Concepción (17,525 ha, 0.6 %); San Ignacio (12,736 ha, 0.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, class Very high.

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.

BO · Bolivia · 2019-08-30 → 2019-09-24

Concepción fire, 30 August 2019 Concepción, San Ignacio

Out · last detection 24 Sept 2019, 17:52 UTC

The fire started on 30 August 2019 in Concepción, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 30,116 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 72th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 834 with a page). Number 27 in Bolivia in 2019, of 219.

Burnt area: 30,116ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 26days; 30 Aug 2019 – 24 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 30 Aug; 2019
Heat detections: 1,815; in a single hotspot: 196 MW
Danger at start: 39; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 11.4GW; sum of detected power

Play back 24 Sept 2019

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Aug24 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

303112346789101112131415161718192021222324

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

The weather it burned in

38°high

54km/h · peak gust

21%lowest humidity

It had gone 48 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 13.2 mm on 1 Oct.

This area had burned before

16% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 883 ha in 2016, 3,264 ha in 2017, 1,384 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,793 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Concepción 93,392 inhabitants where it started

17,525 ha

0.6 %
San Ignacio 56,702 inhabitants

12,736 ha

0.3 %

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)
23 Aug	32.9 °C	36 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
24 Aug	33.9 °C	34 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
25 Aug	34.6 °C	36 %	33 km/h	1.0 mm	High 28
26 Aug	31.2 °C	54 %	36 km/h	1.8 mm	Low 10
27 Aug	30.1 °C	54 %	23 km/h	0.4 mm	Moderate 16
28 Aug	33.6 °C	35 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
29 Aug	34.6 °C	31 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
30 Aug	35.5 °C	32 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
31 Aug	35.4 °C	36 %	38 km/h	2.8 mm	Moderate 16
1 Sept	31.1 °C	37 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
2 Sept	34.3 °C	36 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
3 Sept	34.1 °C	36 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
4 Sept	34.2 °C	37 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
5 Sept	34.7 °C	30 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
6 Sept	37.2 °C	24 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
7 Sept	37.0 °C	25 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
8 Sept	37.0 °C	21 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
9 Sept	36.8 °C	24 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
10 Sept	35.8 °C	30 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
11 Sept	35.9 °C	36 %	37 km/h	0.3 mm	High 37
12 Sept	31.2 °C	41 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
13 Sept	31.5 °C	35 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
14 Sept	37.1 °C	26 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
15 Sept	37.5 °C	25 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
16 Sept	37.8 °C	27 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
17 Sept	36.0 °C	33 %	29 km/h	0.2 mm	High 37
18 Sept	36.8 °C	33 %	44 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 40
19 Sept	35.4 °C	40 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
20 Sept	37.1 °C	33 %	42 km/h	0.1 mm	High 36
21 Sept	34.3 °C	33 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
22 Sept	35.6 °C	28 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
23 Sept	35.8 °C	30 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
24 Sept	37.7 °C	30 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
25 Sept after	31.2 °C	59 %	37 km/h	14.1 mm	Very low 4
26 Sept after	30.4 °C	43 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
27 Sept after	32.7 °C	39 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
28 Sept after	32.9 °C	50 %	37 km/h	0.4 mm	High 22
29 Sept after	32.8 °C	50 %	32 km/h	0.1 mm	High 24
30 Sept after	30.9 °C	61 %	40 km/h	1.1 mm	Moderate 13
1 Oct after	29.5 °C	64 %	58 km/h	13.2 mm	Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 23 Aug 2019

After · 1 Oct 2019

Before After

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 · 1,815Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Bolivia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Concepción fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 August 2019 and 24 September 2019: 26 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 30,116 hectares (301.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Concepción (17,525 ha, 0.6 %); San Ignacio (12,736 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, class Very high.
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

Viceministerio de Defensa Civil ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What really happened?

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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 119 · 110.

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.

Where it burned