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Concepción fire, 30 August 2019 Concepción

Out · last detection 4 Oct 2019, 05:32 UTC

The fire started on 30 August 2019 in Concepción, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 36 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 34,609 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 66th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 836 with a page). Number 24 in Bolivia in 2019, of 219.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Concepción · 2020San Ignacio · 2020Concepción · 2019San Ignacio · 2022

Burnt area
34,609ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
36days
30 Aug 2019 – 4 Oct 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
30 Aug
2019
Heat detections
2,175
in a single hotspot: 148 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Average daily power
446MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Aug4 Oct
4 Oct 2019

How it evolved, day by day

30 Aug 2019 · 213 MW · 28 31 Aug 2019 · 29 MW · 4 1 Sept 2019 · 30 MW · 9 2 Sept 2019 · 239 MW · 57 3 Sept 2019 · 52 MW · 21 6 Sept 2019 · 46 MW · 4 7 Sept 2019 · 245 MW · 37 8 Sept 2019 · 801 MW · 91 9 Sept 2019 · 2,079 MW · 123 10 Sept 2019 · 275 MW · 53 11 Sept 2019 · 43 MW · 4 12 Sept 2019 · 3 MW · 1 13 Sept 2019 · 570 MW · 55 14 Sept 2019 · 816 MW · 104 15 Sept 2019 · 581 MW · 89 16 Sept 2019 · 182 MW · 34 17 Sept 2019 · 100 MW · 20 18 Sept 2019 · 239 MW · 70 19 Sept 2019 · 412 MW · 102 20 Sept 2019 · 337 MW · 68 21 Sept 2019 · 536 MW · 42 22 Sept 2019 · 637 MW · 129 23 Sept 2019 · 2,479 MW · 292 24 Sept 2019 · 35 MW · 5 27 Sept 2019 · 89 MW · 14 28 Sept 2019 · 609 MW · 185 29 Sept 2019 · 1,066 MW · 331 30 Sept 2019 · 999 MW · 155 1 Oct 2019 · 5 MW · 2 3 Oct 2019 · 42 MW · 25 4 Oct 2019 · 22 MW · 21
30 Aug 6 Sept 11 Sept 16 Sept 21 Sept 23 Sept 28 Sept 4 Oct

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
56km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 13.7 mm on 5 Oct.

This area had burned before

14% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,445 ha in 2017, 1,453 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,878 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 22% of the area of London (346 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Concepción 93,392 inhabitants where it started
    34,787 ha reached on 30 Aug
    1.2 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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)
30 Aug 36.0 °C 41 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
31 Aug 35.9 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.2 mm High 23
1 Sept 30.2 °C 43 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
2 Sept 33.7 °C 41 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
3 Sept 33.6 °C 41 % 28 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 18
4 Sept 35.1 °C 38 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
5 Sept 34.5 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
6 Sept 36.4 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
7 Sept 36.3 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 Sept 36.5 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
9 Sept 36.9 °C 28 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Sept 35.8 °C 36 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
11 Sept 37.0 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Sept 30.3 °C 43 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
13 Sept 32.4 °C 42 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Sept 37.1 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Sept 37.2 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Sept 37.9 °C 32 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Sept 34.9 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
18 Sept 36.3 °C 41 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Sept 36.4 °C 43 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Sept 38.0 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.3 mm High 33
21 Sept 35.3 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Sept 35.0 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Sept 37.3 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Sept 37.8 °C 36 % 25 km/h 0.5 mm High 32
25 Sept 29.8 °C 60 % 30 km/h 5.3 mm Very low 5
26 Sept 32.2 °C 37 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
27 Sept 35.4 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
28 Sept 35.1 °C 41 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
29 Sept 36.3 °C 45 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
30 Sept 36.2 °C 45 % 46 km/h 0.3 mm High 29
1 Oct 33.5 °C 48 % 54 km/h 7.4 mm Low 7
2 Oct 31.5 °C 55 % 42 km/h 0.2 mm Low 10
3 Oct 33.1 °C 44 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
4 Oct 35.1 °C 41 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
5 Oct after 25.9 °C 77 % 32 km/h 13.7 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Aug 2019
After · 11 Oct 2019

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 · 2,175Every 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 Bolivia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Concepción fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 August 2019 to 4 October 2019 (36 days). The perimeter dates it from 6 September 2019 to 4 October 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 34,609 hectares (346.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Concepción (34,787 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.0 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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 119 · 110.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 6 September 2019 to 4 October 2019. 2,175 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.