Concepción fire, 5 November 2023 Concepción
The fire started on 5 November 2023 in Concepción, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 49,878 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 42th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 834 with a page). The largest in Bolivia in 2023, of 248.
- Burnt area
- 49,878ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 18days
- 5 Nov 2023 – 22 Nov 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 5 Nov
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 3,059
- in a single hotspot: 639 MW
- Danger at start
- 11
- Moderate · FWI index
- Energy released
- 51.5GW
- 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 one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.2 mm on 23 Nov.
This area had burned before
62% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 30,276 ha in 2020, 996 ha in 2021.
What happened to each town
-
50,022 ha1.7 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 Nov | 35.6 °C | 37 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 11 |
| 6 Nov | 38.0 °C | 35 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 7 Nov | 38.9 °C | 33 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 8 Nov | 37.6 °C | 35 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 9 Nov | 37.0 °C | 38 % | 34 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 10 Nov | 34.9 °C | 45 % | 45 km/h | 3.3 mm | Low 6 |
| 11 Nov | 38.7 °C | 32 % | 41 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 12 Nov | 37.6 °C | 37 % | 44 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 13 Nov | 35.9 °C | 42 % | 31 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 14 Nov | 34.3 °C | 48 % | 36 km/h | 0.6 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 15 Nov | 36.9 °C | 37 % | 44 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 16 Nov | 37.4 °C | 35 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 17 Nov | 38.4 °C | 32 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 18 Nov | 37.9 °C | 35 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 19 Nov | 35.5 °C | 47 % | 46 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 22 |
| 20 Nov | 31.4 °C | 62 % | 42 km/h | 24.3 mm | Very low 1 |
| 21 Nov | 30.6 °C | 61 % | 37 km/h | 0.8 mm | Very low 3 |
| 22 Nov | 31.2 °C | 60 % | 46 km/h | 4.2 mm | Very low 2 |
| 23 Nov after | 32.5 °C | 54 % | 37 km/h | 11.2 mm | Very low 1 |
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 21 November 2023 the air beside the fire reached 516 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 284: 19 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 · 3,059Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 85,746 haConcepción2 October 2020 · 38 days · 9 km away
- 23,271 haConcepción3 October 2023 · 22 days · 20 km away
- 16,392 haConcepción8 November 2023 · 12 days · 25 km away
- 58,499 haConcepción13 September 2021 · 29 days · 31 km away
- 21,965 haConcepción7 October 2020 · 19 days · 39 km away
- 48,633 haConcepción22 August 2020 · 54 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Concepción fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 November 2023 and 22 November 2023: 18 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 49,878 hectares (498.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Concepción (50,022 ha, 1.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, 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.