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Concepción fire, 2 October 2020 Concepción

Out · last detection 8 Nov 2020, 17:45 UTC

The fire started on 2 October 2020 in Concepción, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 38 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 85,746 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 18th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 834 with a page). Number 3 in Bolivia in 2020, of 211.

Burnt area
85,746ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
38days
2 Oct 2020 – 8 Nov 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
2 Oct
2020
Heat detections
4,053
in a single hotspot: 917 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Energy released
43.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Nov 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Oct8 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

24567891011121314151617181922232425262728293112345678

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
57km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.4 mm on 16 Nov.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Concepción 93,392 inhabitants where it started
    85,976 ha
    2.9 %

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)
25 Sept 35.7 °C 39 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
26 Sept 35.0 °C 40 % 53 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
27 Sept 36.1 °C 34 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
28 Sept 33.5 °C 45 % 34 km/h 1.9 mm Moderate 14
29 Sept 35.8 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
30 Sept 37.2 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Oct 36.9 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
2 Oct 37.5 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
3 Oct 37.4 °C 32 % 41 km/h 0.8 mm High 32
4 Oct 37.7 °C 33 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
5 Oct 38.3 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.7 mm High 29
6 Oct 34.1 °C 46 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
7 Oct 37.2 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
8 Oct 38.8 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Oct 37.2 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Oct 37.9 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Oct 36.3 °C 34 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Oct 34.6 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
13 Oct 37.1 °C 33 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Oct 36.9 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.3 mm High 37
15 Oct 33.5 °C 46 % 38 km/h 4.4 mm Low 8
16 Oct 35.2 °C 38 % 27 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 20
17 Oct 36.0 °C 39 % 35 km/h 2.9 mm Moderate 14
18 Oct 36.4 °C 34 % 38 km/h 2.0 mm Moderate 20
19 Oct 31.3 °C 55 % 45 km/h 5.6 mm Very low 4
20 Oct 34.9 °C 41 % 36 km/h 2.5 mm Low 8
21 Oct 35.3 °C 38 % 24 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 16
22 Oct 36.8 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 20
23 Oct 35.0 °C 44 % 35 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 16
24 Oct 35.5 °C 45 % 38 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 19
25 Oct 34.4 °C 47 % 49 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 16
26 Oct 34.0 °C 47 % 47 km/h 3.3 mm Low 7
27 Oct 31.8 °C 58 % 44 km/h 7.2 mm Very low 2
28 Oct 33.9 °C 50 % 57 km/h 0.1 mm Low 10
29 Oct 30.3 °C 68 % 38 km/h 22.7 mm Very low 0
30 Oct 29.1 °C 49 % 54 km/h 5.1 mm Very low 1
31 Oct 32.0 °C 35 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
1 Nov 33.8 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
2 Nov 35.8 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 14
3 Nov 36.1 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
4 Nov 37.3 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
5 Nov 37.5 °C 22 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
6 Nov 37.4 °C 27 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
7 Nov 36.3 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
8 Nov 35.4 °C 42 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 20
9 Nov after 30.5 °C 57 % 46 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 12
10 Nov after 30.4 °C 67 % 37 km/h 9.8 mm Very low 0
11 Nov after 31.5 °C 59 % 32 km/h 9.0 mm Very low 0
12 Nov after 30.1 °C 65 % 23 km/h 5.4 mm Very low 0
13 Nov after 31.6 °C 61 % 24 km/h 7.1 mm Very low 0
14 Nov after 32.0 °C 62 % 37 km/h 3.3 mm Very low 0
15 Nov after 33.0 °C 54 % 37 km/h 0.5 mm Very low 2
16 Nov after 33.0 °C 53 % 33 km/h 3.4 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Sept 2020
After · 15 Nov 2020

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 · 4,053Every 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 2 October 2020 and 8 November 2020: 38 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 85,746 hectares (857.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Concepción (85,976 ha, 2.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.