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Concepción fire, 31 October 2020 Concepción, San Antonio de Lomerío

Out · last detection 8 Nov 2020, 05:13 UTC

The fire started on 31 October 2020 in Concepción, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,947 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 127th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 834 with a page). Number 31 in Bolivia in 2020, of 211.

Burnt area
16,947ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
31 Oct 2020 – 8 Nov 2020
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
31 Oct
2020
Heat detections
742
in a single hotspot: 75 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
6.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Nov 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Oct8 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

311345678

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
59km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 9.8 mm on 9 Nov.

This area had burned before

68% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,045 ha in 2016, 329 ha in 2017, 9,822 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 11,600 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Concepción 93,392 inhabitants where it started
    11,824 ha
    0.4 %
  2. San Antonio de Lomerío 6,364 inhabitants
    5,303 ha
    2.2 %

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 Oct 34.5 °C 49 % 59 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
26 Oct 29.4 °C 64 % 53 km/h 6.1 mm Very low 4
27 Oct 33.5 °C 48 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
28 Oct 33.8 °C 48 % 59 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 21
29 Oct 26.9 °C 57 % 51 km/h 20.7 mm Very low 1
30 Oct 29.2 °C 38 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
31 Oct 31.6 °C 28 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
1 Nov 33.0 °C 29 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
2 Nov 34.5 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
3 Nov 36.8 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
4 Nov 37.5 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
5 Nov 37.7 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
6 Nov 37.4 °C 33 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
7 Nov 38.7 °C 29 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
8 Nov 35.8 °C 43 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
9 Nov after 29.7 °C 63 % 41 km/h 9.8 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Oct 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 · 742Every 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 31 October 2020 and 8 November 2020: 9 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 16,947 hectares (169.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Concepción (11,824 ha, 0.4 %); San Antonio de Lomerío (5,303 ha, 2.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.7 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, 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

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.