Concepción fire, 20 July 2023 Concepción
The fire started on 20 July 2023 in Concepción, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,186 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 424th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 834 with a page). Number 125 in Bolivia in 2023, of 248.
- Burnt area
- 5,186ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 14days
- 20 Jul 2023 – 2 Aug 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 20 Jul
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 399
- in a single hotspot: 93 MW
- Danger at start
- 23
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 2.3GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 35 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 13.8 mm on 12 Aug.
This area had burned before
98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 286 ha in 2016, 1,124 ha in 2017, 1,992 ha in 2018, 3,809 ha in 2019, 388 ha in 2021, 6,965 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,069 ha that had burned before.
- 2,813 ha Concepción fire, August 2019 61,441 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 950 ha Concepción fire, June 2022 3,369 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 410 ha Concepción fire, August 2018 4,952 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6 ha Concepción fire, October 2021 5,528 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
5,223 ha0.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 Jul | 32.0 °C | 39 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 21 Jul | 33.1 °C | 33 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 22 Jul | 31.6 °C | 32 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 23 Jul | 31.1 °C | 36 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 24 Jul | 32.0 °C | 35 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 25 Jul | 30.2 °C | 35 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 26 Jul | 31.7 °C | 35 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 27 Jul | 27.8 °C | 53 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 28 Jul | 30.1 °C | 48 % | 30 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 26 |
| 29 Jul | 29.2 °C | 48 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 30 Jul | 31.9 °C | 40 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 31 Jul | 33.7 °C | 37 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 1 Aug | 34.9 °C | 33 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 2 Aug | 34.9 °C | 30 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 3 Aug after | 34.1 °C | 36 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 4 Aug after | 34.2 °C | 34 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 5 Aug after | 33.7 °C | 36 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 6 Aug after | 32.7 °C | 41 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 7 Aug after | 33.2 °C | 45 % | 37 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 29 |
| 8 Aug after | 31.8 °C | 38 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 9 Aug after | 34.0 °C | 37 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 10 Aug after | 34.5 °C | 39 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 11 Aug after | 33.8 °C | 45 % | 53 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 35 |
| 12 Aug after | 27.3 °C | 67 % | 39 km/h | 13.8 mm | Very low 2 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 2 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 100 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 62: 4.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 399Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 61,441 haConcepción28 August 2019 · 38 days · 9 km away
- 15,191 haSan Ignacio6 September 2017 · 19 days · 28 km away
- 221,128 haConcepción6 August 2019 · 60 days · 32 km away
- 15,310 haConcepción23 August 2022 · 31 days · 32 km away
- 12,474 haConcepciónOctober 2022 · 22 days · 35 km away
- 14,061 haConcepción9 September 2021 · 25 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Concepción fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 July 2023 and 2 August 2023: 14 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 5,186 hectares (51.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Concepción (5,223 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.9 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 42 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
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
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.