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Concepción fire, 26 September 2023 Concepción, Baures

Out · last detection 7 Nov 2023, 05:00 UTC

The fire started on 26 September 2023 in Concepción, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 42 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,470 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 285th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 835 with a page). Number 80 in Bolivia in 2023, of 248.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Baures · 2018Baures · 2026

Burnt area
7,470ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
42days
26 Sept 2023 – 6 Nov 2023
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
26 Sept
2023
Heat detections
576
in a single hotspot: 253 MW
Danger at start
14
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
308MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Sept6 Nov
7 Nov 2023

How it evolved, day by day

26 Sept 2023 · 195 MW · 10 27 Sept 2023 · 10 MW · 7 28 Sept 2023 · 181 MW · 15 1 Oct 2023 · 12 MW · 1 3 Oct 2023 · 817 MW · 32 4 Oct 2023 · 1,377 MW · 36 5 Oct 2023 · 2,428 MW · 77 6 Oct 2023 · 1,350 MW · 72 7 Oct 2023 · 143 MW · 25 9 Oct 2023 · 168 MW · 9 10 Oct 2023 · 37 MW · 4 11 Oct 2023 · 40 MW · 7 12 Oct 2023 · 3 MW · 1 13 Oct 2023 · 14 MW · 3 14 Oct 2023 · 35 MW · 6 16 Oct 2023 · 688 MW · 22 17 Oct 2023 · 159 MW · 23 18 Oct 2023 · 51 MW · 6 19 Oct 2023 · 119 MW · 22 20 Oct 2023 · 21 MW · 12 21 Oct 2023 · 507 MW · 36 22 Oct 2023 · 727 MW · 33 23 Oct 2023 · 215 MW · 14 24 Oct 2023 · 37 MW · 5 25 Oct 2023 · 2 MW · 2 27 Oct 2023 · 505 MW · 27 29 Oct 2023 · 36 MW · 6 30 Oct 2023 · 131 MW · 16 31 Oct 2023 · 17 MW · 4 2 Nov 2023 · 12 MW · 2 3 Nov 2023 · 4 MW · 1 5 Nov 2023 · 317 MW · 11 6 Nov 2023 · 119 MW · 27 7 Nov 2023 · 3 MW · 2
26 Sept 4 Oct 5 Oct 10 Oct 16 Oct 21 Oct 27 Oct 3 Nov

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
56km/h · peak gust
35%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 4 Nov.

This area had burned before

60% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,131 ha in 2017, 595 ha in 2018, 1,915 ha in 2020, 4,526 ha in 2021, 676 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,488 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 4.7% of the area of London (75 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
    4,799 ha reached on 26 Sept
    0.2 %
  2. Baures 7,488 inhabitants
    2,684 ha reached on 3 Oct
    0.2 %

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 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside 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)
3 Oct 36.3 °C 42 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
4 Oct 35.3 °C 46 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
5 Oct 36.0 °C 41 % 42 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 16
6 Oct 36.4 °C 43 % 51 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 18
7 Oct 35.0 °C 45 % 41 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 14
8 Oct 27.8 °C 68 % 31 km/h 1.4 mm Very low 4
9 Oct 32.3 °C 53 % 22 km/h 0.2 mm Low 9
10 Oct 35.9 °C 45 % 32 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 11
11 Oct 35.4 °C 48 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 14
12 Oct 34.1 °C 51 % 27 km/h 5.7 mm Very low 3
13 Oct 29.7 °C 58 % 35 km/h 6.6 mm Very low 1
14 Oct 33.4 °C 50 % 21 km/h 0.7 mm Very low 4
15 Oct 33.5 °C 52 % 25 km/h 0.1 mm Low 8
16 Oct 36.4 °C 38 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 14
17 Oct 34.9 °C 46 % 28 km/h 1.1 mm Low 10
18 Oct 36.2 °C 43 % 17 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 12
19 Oct 38.1 °C 39 % 20 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 12
20 Oct 36.8 °C 45 % 18 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 13
21 Oct 37.7 °C 35 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
22 Oct 38.5 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 21
23 Oct 36.1 °C 44 % 35 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 14
24 Oct 35.9 °C 49 % 31 km/h 1.4 mm Low 11
25 Oct 35.0 °C 52 % 30 km/h 5.1 mm Very low 3
26 Oct 27.6 °C 74 % 38 km/h 4.3 mm Very low 0
27 Oct 35.3 °C 39 % 53 km/h 0.4 mm Low 9
28 Oct 33.5 °C 50 % 56 km/h 2.5 mm Low 5
29 Oct 36.4 °C 43 % 50 km/h 4.8 mm Very low 4
30 Oct 32.5 °C 52 % 37 km/h 0.4 mm Low 8
31 Oct 30.6 °C 53 % 24 km/h 0.6 mm Low 8
1 Nov 33.1 °C 45 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
2 Nov 35.5 °C 41 % 42 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 14
3 Nov 36.9 °C 38 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 18
4 Nov 29.3 °C 50 % 38 km/h 1.0 mm Low 11

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Sept 2023
After · 13 Nov 2023

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 109 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 55: 3.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak109 µg/m³
Days over the guideline30 days
PM10156 µg/m³
Optical depth2.26
1234567891011121314151617181920212223242526272829303112
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 · 576Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 September 2023 to 6 November 2023 (42 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 October 2023 to 30 October 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,470 hectares (74.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Concepción (4,799 ha, 0.2 %); Baures (2,684 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.5 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 21, class Moderate.
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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 3 October 2023 to 30 October 2023. 576 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.

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.