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Concepción fire, 13 September 2021 Concepción

Out · last detection 24 Oct 2021, 05:52 UTC

The fire started on 13 September 2021 in Concepción, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 42 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 76,754 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 19th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 834 with a page). Number 5 in Bolivia in 2021, of 155.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Concepción · 2019Urubichá · 2022Concepción · 2022Concepción · 2021

Burnt area
76,754ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
42days
13 Sept 2021 – 24 Oct 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
13 Sept
2021
Heat detections
4,587
in a single hotspot: 156 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Average daily power
753MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Sept24 Oct
24 Oct 2021

How it evolved, day by day

13 Sept 2021 · 12 MW · 4 14 Sept 2021 · 27 MW · 7 16 Sept 2021 · 5 MW · 4 17 Sept 2021 · 166 MW · 13 18 Sept 2021 · 235 MW · 75 19 Sept 2021 · 398 MW · 61 20 Sept 2021 · 586 MW · 69 21 Sept 2021 · 214 MW · 20 22 Sept 2021 · 2,812 MW · 65 23 Sept 2021 · 1,929 MW · 279 24 Sept 2021 · 3,964 MW · 522 25 Sept 2021 · 584 MW · 150 26 Sept 2021 · 1,019 MW · 103 27 Sept 2021 · 260 MW · 86 28 Sept 2021 · 756 MW · 161 29 Sept 2021 · 535 MW · 196 30 Sept 2021 · 745 MW · 138 1 Oct 2021 · 456 MW · 66 2 Oct 2021 · 968 MW · 69 3 Oct 2021 · 144 MW · 94 4 Oct 2021 · 309 MW · 114 5 Oct 2021 · 553 MW · 153 6 Oct 2021 · 119 MW · 44 7 Oct 2021 · 41 MW · 7 8 Oct 2021 · 1,112 MW · 77 9 Oct 2021 · 605 MW · 315 10 Oct 2021 · 160 MW · 99 11 Oct 2021 · 112 MW · 39 12 Oct 2021 · 48 MW · 11 13 Oct 2021 · 268 MW · 58 14 Oct 2021 · 2,724 MW · 214 15 Oct 2021 · 2,322 MW · 554 19 Oct 2021 · 524 MW · 25 20 Oct 2021 · 2,925 MW · 435 21 Oct 2021 · 777 MW · 206 22 Oct 2021 · 201 MW · 50 23 Oct 2021 · 6 MW · 3 24 Oct 2021 · 4 MW · 1
13 Sept 20 Sept 24 Sept 26 Sept 2 Oct 8 Oct 14 Oct 23 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
61km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 42.6 mm on 24 Oct.

This area had burned before

14% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 11 ha in 2016, 478 ha in 2017, 879 ha in 2018, 9,878 ha in 2019, 173 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,657 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 48% of the area of London (768 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Concepción 93,392 inhabitants where it started
    77,280 ha reached on 13 Sept
    2.6 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
13 Sept 33.4 °C 40 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
14 Sept 32.9 °C 47 % 47 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 20
15 Sept 29.5 °C 48 % 36 km/h 5.7 mm Very low 5
16 Sept 31.6 °C 42 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
17 Sept 33.9 °C 39 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
18 Sept 33.6 °C 40 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
19 Sept 34.2 °C 40 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 21
20 Sept 34.7 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
21 Sept 33.4 °C 38 % 44 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
22 Sept 33.3 °C 34 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
23 Sept 35.7 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
24 Sept 30.8 °C 35 % 45 km/h 0.4 mm High 33
25 Sept 34.9 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
26 Sept 34.3 °C 35 % 39 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
27 Sept 32.9 °C 45 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
28 Sept 32.2 °C 49 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm High 24
29 Sept 34.9 °C 40 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
30 Sept 34.6 °C 42 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
1 Oct 34.5 °C 42 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
2 Oct 33.5 °C 43 % 55 km/h 0.4 mm High 31
3 Oct 32.8 °C 46 % 52 km/h 2.6 mm Moderate 12
4 Oct 26.2 °C 55 % 44 km/h 6.6 mm Very low 4
5 Oct 31.8 °C 42 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
6 Oct 33.9 °C 39 % 45 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 20
7 Oct 34.4 °C 37 % 41 km/h 0.2 mm High 25
8 Oct 35.6 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
9 Oct 33.6 °C 48 % 43 km/h 1.7 mm Moderate 13
10 Oct 32.5 °C 53 % 43 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 12
11 Oct 32.3 °C 53 % 44 km/h 3.7 mm Very low 4
12 Oct 34.9 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 16
13 Oct 34.6 °C 44 % 48 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 21
14 Oct 35.5 °C 41 % 59 km/h 1.2 mm High 23
15 Oct 33.0 °C 49 % 54 km/h 20.3 mm Very low 4
16 Oct 24.6 °C 57 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
17 Oct 29.2 °C 56 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
18 Oct 29.3 °C 52 % 32 km/h 0.7 mm Low 9
19 Oct 32.0 °C 37 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
20 Oct 35.3 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
21 Oct 34.5 °C 41 % 29 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 17
22 Oct 34.7 °C 42 % 40 km/h 2.4 mm Low 10
23 Oct 35.1 °C 43 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
24 Oct 27.9 °C 65 % 60 km/h 42.6 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Sept 2021
After · 31 Oct 2021

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 · 4,587Every 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 13 September 2021 and 24 October 2021: 42 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 76,754 hectares (767.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Concepción (77,280 ha, 2.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 61 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 4,587 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.