How long did the Concepción fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 September 2021 and 3 October 2021: 25 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 14,061 hectares (140.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Concepción (14,170 ha, 0.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 66 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.

BO · Bolivia · 2021-09-09 → 2021-10-03

Concepción fire, 9 September 2021 Concepción

Out · last detection 4 Oct 2021, 05:26 UTC

The fire started on 9 September 2021 in Concepción, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,061 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 160th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 834 with a page). Number 28 in Bolivia in 2021, of 155.

Burnt area: 14,061ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 25days; 9 Sept 2021 – 3 Oct 2021
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 9 Sept; 2021
Heat detections: 1,262; in a single hotspot: 69 MW
Danger at start: 38; High · FWI index
Energy released: 7.8GW; sum of detected power

Play back 4 Oct 2021

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Sept3 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

91011121314151617181920212223242526272829301234

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

66km/h · peak gust

32%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 11 Oct.

This area had burned before

93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 13,887 ha in 2019, 2 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 13,062 ha that had burned before.

12,836 ha Concepción fire, August 2019 221,128 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

14,170 ha

0.5 %

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)
7 Sept	35.1 °C	39 %	62 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
8 Sept	35.6 °C	39 %	50 km/h	0.8 mm	High 29
9 Sept	23.9 °C	49 %	45 km/h	3.7 mm	Low 8
10 Sept	31.3 °C	36 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
11 Sept	32.4 °C	45 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
12 Sept	34.8 °C	39 %	56 km/h	0.1 mm	High 31
13 Sept	35.4 °C	37 %	66 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
14 Sept	34.4 °C	41 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
15 Sept	30.4 °C	49 %	37 km/h	0.8 mm	Moderate 21
16 Sept	32.0 °C	43 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
17 Sept	35.2 °C	36 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
18 Sept	35.9 °C	36 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
19 Sept	35.4 °C	41 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
20 Sept	36.4 °C	32 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
21 Sept	33.8 °C	41 %	40 km/h	0.2 mm	High 35
22 Sept	32.8 °C	40 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
23 Sept	34.4 °C	33 %	26 km/h	0.1 mm	High 33
24 Sept	32.5 °C	34 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
25 Sept	34.9 °C	33 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
26 Sept	34.7 °C	42 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
27 Sept	34.2 °C	46 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
28 Sept	34.9 °C	44 %	35 km/h	0.1 mm	High 30
29 Sept	35.3 °C	40 %	30 km/h	0.4 mm	High 30
30 Sept	35.7 °C	43 %	48 km/h	0.2 mm	High 32
1 Oct	36.1 °C	42 %	50 km/h	0.2 mm	High 33
2 Oct	35.8 °C	41 %	52 km/h	0.3 mm	High 36
3 Oct	33.3 °C	49 %	57 km/h	0.3 mm	High 32
4 Oct after	28.5 °C	50 %	38 km/h	0.5 mm	High 28
5 Oct after	31.0 °C	45 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
6 Oct after	33.3 °C	40 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
7 Oct after	33.4 °C	46 %	41 km/h	0.2 mm	High 30
8 Oct after	36.7 °C	37 %	34 km/h	0.3 mm	High 31
9 Oct after	34.5 °C	48 %	42 km/h	0.4 mm	High 32
10 Oct after	35.5 °C	41 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
11 Oct after	30.1 °C	61 %	36 km/h	1.4 mm	Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 2 Sept 2021

After · 10 Oct 2021

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 · 1,262Every 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 9 September 2021 and 3 October 2021: 25 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 14,061 hectares (140.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Concepción (14,170 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 66 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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

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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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