How long did the Concepción fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 September 2020 and 15 October 2020: 36 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 33,230 hectares (332.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Concepción (33,413 ha, 1.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.1 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 56 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 Bolivia (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

BO · Bolivia · 2020-09-10 → 2020-10-15

Concepción fire, 10 September 2020 Concepción

Out · last detection 15 Oct 2020, 16:55 UTC

The fire started on 10 September 2020 in Concepción, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 36 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 33,230 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 69th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 834 with a page). Number 13 in Bolivia in 2020, of 211.

Burnt area: 33,230ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 36days; 10 Sept 2020 – 15 Oct 2020
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 10 Sept; 2020
Heat detections: 2,304; in a single hotspot: 147 MW
Danger at start: 39; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 12.4GW; sum of detected power

Play back 15 Oct 2020

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Sept15 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

1011121315161718202122232425262728293012345789101112131415

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

21%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 23 Oct.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 311 ha in 2019.

265 ha Concepción fire, September 2019 34,609 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Concepción 93,392 inhabitants where it started

33,413 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)
10 Sept	37.8 °C	21 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
11 Sept	36.7 °C	25 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
12 Sept	35.4 °C	39 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
13 Sept	35.4 °C	37 %	29 km/h	0.1 mm	High 34
14 Sept	34.8 °C	36 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
15 Sept	33.2 °C	34 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
16 Sept	35.1 °C	28 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
17 Sept	35.3 °C	28 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
18 Sept	36.1 °C	26 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
19 Sept	34.6 °C	37 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
20 Sept	29.5 °C	53 %	48 km/h	3.1 mm	Low 11
21 Sept	31.3 °C	34 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
22 Sept	31.0 °C	36 %	36 km/h	0.5 mm	High 28
23 Sept	33.4 °C	38 %	22 km/h	0.1 mm	High 26
24 Sept	36.2 °C	34 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
25 Sept	35.6 °C	37 %	35 km/h	0.3 mm	High 31
26 Sept	35.5 °C	38 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
27 Sept	35.7 °C	33 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
28 Sept	32.3 °C	44 %	37 km/h	2.4 mm	Moderate 13
29 Sept	34.7 °C	36 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
30 Sept	36.8 °C	32 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
1 Oct	36.5 °C	32 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
2 Oct	37.0 °C	31 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
3 Oct	37.0 °C	33 %	23 km/h	0.2 mm	High 30
4 Oct	36.9 °C	35 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
5 Oct	37.9 °C	32 %	53 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 42
6 Oct	34.1 °C	44 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
7 Oct	36.7 °C	31 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
8 Oct	38.1 °C	23 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
9 Oct	37.1 °C	28 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
10 Oct	37.3 °C	27 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
11 Oct	36.4 °C	34 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
12 Oct	35.6 °C	28 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
13 Oct	37.4 °C	30 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
14 Oct	36.7 °C	33 %	41 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 40
15 Oct	35.1 °C	40 %	43 km/h	4.1 mm	Low 11
16 Oct after	32.9 °C	47 %	36 km/h	2.0 mm	Moderate 12
17 Oct after	34.6 °C	42 %	37 km/h	0.3 mm	Moderate 21
18 Oct after	35.4 °C	39 %	30 km/h	2.1 mm	Moderate 15
19 Oct after	31.2 °C	57 %	47 km/h	10.2 mm	Very low 4
20 Oct after	32.0 °C	55 %	37 km/h	5.2 mm	Very low 2
21 Oct after	34.3 °C	42 %	27 km/h	0.2 mm	Low 9
22 Oct after	35.4 °C	40 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
23 Oct after	34.5 °C	46 %	32 km/h	2.5 mm	Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 3 Sept 2020

After · 22 Oct 2020

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 · 2,304Every 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 10 September 2020 and 15 October 2020: 36 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 33,230 hectares (332.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Concepción (33,413 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.1 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 56 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 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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Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

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