How long did the Concepción fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 July 2023 and 3 August 2023: 23 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 5,054 hectares (50.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Concepción (5,108 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 63 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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 · 2023-07-12 → 2023-08-03

Concepción fire, 12 July 2023 Concepción

Out · last detection 4 Aug 2023, 04:43 UTC

The fire started on 12 July 2023 in Concepción, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,054 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 435th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 834 with a page). Number 128 in Bolivia in 2023, of 248.

Burnt area: 5,054ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 23days; 12 Jul 2023 – 3 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 12 Jul; 2023
Heat detections: 435; in a single hotspot: 51 MW
Danger at start: 26; High · FWI index
Energy released: 3.2GW; sum of detected power

Play back 4 Aug 2023

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Jul3 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

12131516171819202122232425282930311234

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

The weather it burned in

34°high

63km/h · peak gust

33%lowest humidity

It had gone 27 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.2 mm on 7 Aug.

This area had burned before

18% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 895 ha in 2016, 165 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 920 ha that had burned before.

343 ha Concepción fire, August 2016 5,926 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

5,108 ha

0.2 %

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)
12 Jul	30.6 °C	48 %	63 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
13 Jul	22.0 °C	63 %	54 km/h	2.0 mm	Low 8
14 Jul	18.1 °C	58 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
15 Jul	26.7 °C	51 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
16 Jul	26.9 °C	47 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
17 Jul	26.4 °C	54 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
18 Jul	21.7 °C	56 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
19 Jul	22.3 °C	47 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
20 Jul	30.6 °C	43 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
21 Jul	31.5 °C	39 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
22 Jul	30.4 °C	33 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
23 Jul	29.7 °C	40 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
24 Jul	30.6 °C	38 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
25 Jul	28.6 °C	35 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
26 Jul	28.9 °C	39 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
27 Jul	24.5 °C	63 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
28 Jul	26.8 °C	57 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
29 Jul	26.9 °C	47 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
30 Jul	31.2 °C	40 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
31 Jul	31.8 °C	45 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 21
1 Aug	33.1 °C	37 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
2 Aug	33.3 °C	35 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
3 Aug	33.7 °C	35 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
4 Aug after	32.9 °C	38 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
5 Aug after	32.0 °C	38 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
6 Aug after	31.8 °C	43 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
7 Aug after	31.2 °C	50 %	46 km/h	3.2 mm	Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 5 Jul 2023

After · 10 Aug 2023

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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 30 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 74 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 37: 2.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak74 µg/m³

Days over the guideline6 days

PM10105 µg/m³

Optical depth1.12

WHO 15

10111213141516171819202122232425262728293031123456

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 435Every 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 12 July 2023 and 3 August 2023: 23 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 5,054 hectares (50.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Concepción (5,108 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 63 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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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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