How long did the Concepción fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 October 2023 and 24 October 2023: 22 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 23,271 hectares (232.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Concepción (23,321 ha, 0.8 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 39.3 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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 · 2023-10-03 → 2023-10-24

Concepción fire, 3 October 2023 Concepción

Out · last detection 24 Oct 2023, 18:36 UTC

The fire started on 3 October 2023 in Concepción, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 23,271 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 89th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 834 with a page). Number 12 in Bolivia in 2023, of 248.

Burnt area: 23,271ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 22days; 3 Oct 2023 – 24 Oct 2023
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 3 Oct; 2023
Heat detections: 1,817; in a single hotspot: 633 MW
Danger at start: 36; High · FWI index
Energy released: 35.7GW; sum of detected power

Play back 24 Oct 2023

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Oct24 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

345679101112131415161718192021222324

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

The weather it burned in

39°high

54km/h · peak gust

30%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.4 mm on 25 Oct.

This area had burned before

66% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 16,045 ha in 2020.

11,539 ha Concepción fire, October 2020 85,746 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

23,321 ha

0.8 %

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)
26 Sept	37.6 °C	33 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
27 Sept	35.4 °C	43 %	38 km/h	1.6 mm	Moderate 18
28 Sept	34.8 °C	40 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
29 Sept	35.5 °C	45 %	23 km/h	4.0 mm	Low 7
30 Sept	32.9 °C	53 %	26 km/h	3.2 mm	Very low 4
1 Oct	34.8 °C	46 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
2 Oct	35.6 °C	43 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
3 Oct	37.1 °C	32 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
4 Oct	37.0 °C	33 %	43 km/h	0.1 mm	High 28
5 Oct	37.2 °C	34 %	36 km/h	0.1 mm	High 28
6 Oct	38.1 °C	32 %	54 km/h	0.2 mm	High 34
7 Oct	38.4 °C	33 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
8 Oct	31.0 °C	53 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
9 Oct	35.3 °C	40 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
10 Oct	35.6 °C	43 %	27 km/h	0.5 mm	High 22
11 Oct	37.2 °C	36 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
12 Oct	35.5 °C	43 %	39 km/h	8.9 mm	Very low 5
13 Oct	32.8 °C	42 %	37 km/h	1.4 mm	Moderate 12
14 Oct	36.1 °C	38 %	22 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 18
15 Oct	35.2 °C	47 %	27 km/h	0.3 mm	Moderate 19
16 Oct	36.5 °C	38 %	34 km/h	0.3 mm	High 22
17 Oct	35.7 °C	41 %	40 km/h	7.8 mm	Low 5
18 Oct	36.8 °C	34 %	34 km/h	0.9 mm	Moderate 15
19 Oct	35.7 °C	39 %	29 km/h	2.6 mm	Low 8
20 Oct	37.0 °C	35 %	25 km/h	0.4 mm	Moderate 16
21 Oct	38.5 °C	35 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
22 Oct	39.3 °C	30 %	32 km/h	0.2 mm	High 25
23 Oct	36.6 °C	39 %	42 km/h	0.6 mm	High 22
24 Oct	36.8 °C	38 %	42 km/h	0.6 mm	Moderate 21
25 Oct after	34.8 °C	48 %	44 km/h	7.4 mm	Low 5

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 26 Sept 2023

After · 31 Oct 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 18 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 205 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 108: 7.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak205 µg/m³

Days over the guideline24 days

PM10293 µg/m³

Optical depth1.54

WHO 15

123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627

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 · 1,817Every 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 3 October 2023 and 24 October 2023: 22 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 23,271 hectares (232.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Concepción (23,321 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 39.3 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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