Concepcion fire, 17 September 2023 Concepcion, San Carlos
The fire started on 17 September 2023 in Concepcion, Paraguay, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,839 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 137th largest in Concepción since 2016 (of 195 with a page). Number 141 in Paraguay in 2023, of 209.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 1,839ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 10days
- 17 Sept 2023 – 26 Sept 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 17 Sept
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 38
- in a single hotspot: 91 MW
- Danger at start
- 18
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 88MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 254 ha in 2016, 1,102 ha in 2017, 267 ha in 2018, 1,086 ha in 2019, 1,604 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,830 ha that had burned before.
- 1,372 ha Concepcion fire, July 2021 3,948 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,102 ha Concepcion fire, August 2017 3,152 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,086 ha Concepcion fire, September 2019 5,387 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 254 ha Concepcion fire, August 2016 2,503 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Concepcion where it started1,474 ha reached on 19 Sept0.2 %
-
369 ha reached on 21 Sept0.2 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 Sept | 33.8 °C | 40 % | 39 km/h | 0.7 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 20 Sept | 34.5 °C | 40 % | 31 km/h | 0.6 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 21 Sept | 37.8 °C | 28 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 22 Sept | 39.3 °C | 24 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 23 Sept | 39.3 °C | 26 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 24 Sept | 39.3 °C | 28 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 25 Sept | 39.6 °C | 24 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 26 Sept | 40.2 °C | 25 % | 59 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 27 Sept after | 24.0 °C | 69 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 28 Sept after | 27.7 °C | 42 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 29 Sept after | 31.0 °C | 35 % | 32 km/h | 0.8 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 30 Sept after | 26.8 °C | 43 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 1 Oct after | 31.0 °C | 37 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 2 Oct after | 37.5 °C | 29 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 3 Oct after | 40.1 °C | 24 % | 62 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
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 25 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 26 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 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 · 38Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 18,830 haConcepcion3 September 2024 · 10 days · 8 km away
- 13,439 haConcepcion17 August 2021 · 9 days · 12 km away
- 26,879 haSan Carlos7 August 2021 · 19 days · 14 km away
- 8,753 haSan Carlos15 August 2024 · 8 days · 19 km away
- 10,679 haSan Lazaro3 July 2021 · 12 days · 28 km away
- 89,177 haSan Carlos14 August 2021 · 12 days · 29 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Concepcion fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 September 2023 to 26 September 2023 (10 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 September 2023 to 23 September 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,839 hectares (18.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Concepcion (1,474 ha, 0.2 %); San Carlos (369 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.3 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class High.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Paraguay (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: 132 · 911 · 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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 19 September 2023 to 23 September 2023. 38 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 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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 ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)). 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.