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Concepción fire, 5 September 2019 Concepción

Out · last detection 2 Oct 2019, 06:10 UTC

The fire started on 5 September 2019 in Concepción, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 30,865 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 71th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 834 with a page). Number 26 in Bolivia in 2019, of 219.

Burnt area
30,865ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
27days
5 Sept 2019 – 1 Oct 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
5 Sept
2019
Heat detections
2,278
in a single hotspot: 216 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
11.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Oct 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Sept1 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

5678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293012

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
74km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.5 mm on 3 Oct.

This area had burned before

33% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 10,271 ha in 2016, 408 ha in 2017, 2,733 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,152 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Concepción 93,392 inhabitants where it started
    31,206 ha
    1.1 %

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)
5 Sept 29.7 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Sept 34.9 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Sept 35.4 °C 29 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
8 Sept 33.1 °C 33 % 60 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 41
9 Sept 34.6 °C 29 % 66 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Sept 34.1 °C 37 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Sept 31.5 °C 51 % 51 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 17
12 Sept 25.4 °C 48 % 62 km/h 9.1 mm Low 7
13 Sept 29.1 °C 35 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
14 Sept 35.2 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
15 Sept 35.9 °C 27 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Sept 36.2 °C 30 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Sept 33.6 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Sept 32.5 °C 46 % 45 km/h 2.0 mm Moderate 12
19 Sept 32.9 °C 46 % 74 km/h 1.4 mm High 23
20 Sept 31.1 °C 47 % 44 km/h 3.4 mm Low 8
21 Sept 30.2 °C 27 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
22 Sept 32.1 °C 27 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Sept 35.4 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
24 Sept 36.8 °C 27 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 Sept 31.5 °C 31 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Sept 32.4 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Sept 34.1 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Sept 34.4 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Sept 34.0 °C 39 % 42 km/h 0.6 mm High 28
30 Sept 34.1 °C 43 % 57 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
1 Oct 30.2 °C 58 % 71 km/h 2.3 mm Moderate 13
2 Oct after 30.8 °C 49 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
3 Oct after 30.3 °C 51 % 46 km/h 5.5 mm Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Aug 2019
After · 8 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 · 2,278Every 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?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 September 2019 and 1 October 2019: 27 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 30,865 hectares (308.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Concepción (31,206 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 74 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

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 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.