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Concepción fire, 24 July 2024 Concepción

Out · last detection 27 Aug 2024, 17:20 UTC

The fire started on 24 July 2024 in Concepción, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 34 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 17,610 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 121th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 834 with a page). Number 45 in Bolivia in 2024, of 295.

Burnt area
17,610ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
34days
24 Jul 2024 – 26 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
24 Jul
2024
Heat detections
1,564
in a single hotspot: 112 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
8.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Aug 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Jul26 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

29303112345678101112131415161718192021222324252627

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
64km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 12 Sept.

This area had burned before

90% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,383 ha in 2016, 13,883 ha in 2019, 1,023 ha in 2020, 1,166 ha in 2021, 422 ha in 2022, 3,203 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 15,796 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Concepción 93,392 inhabitants where it started
    17,771 ha
    0.6 %

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 30.5 °C 29 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
21 Jul 31.4 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Jul 29.7 °C 33 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Jul 31.5 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
24 Jul 31.8 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
25 Jul 31.7 °C 35 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Jul 32.6 °C 34 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Jul 33.0 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Jul 32.3 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Jul 26.1 °C 47 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
30 Jul 26.1 °C 46 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
31 Jul 31.8 °C 35 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
1 Aug 32.6 °C 33 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Aug 32.0 °C 36 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
3 Aug 31.5 °C 39 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Aug 31.4 °C 41 % 42 km/h 0.2 mm High 33
5 Aug 32.6 °C 35 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Aug 31.4 °C 37 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
7 Aug 28.6 °C 55 % 52 km/h 5.5 mm Low 6
8 Aug 21.2 °C 75 % 48 km/h 10.2 mm Very low 0
9 Aug 13.4 °C 43 % 54 km/h 7.6 mm Very low 0
10 Aug 23.1 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
11 Aug 27.2 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
12 Aug 24.5 °C 21 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
13 Aug 27.1 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
14 Aug 31.5 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
15 Aug 33.3 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
16 Aug 34.3 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
17 Aug 33.9 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
18 Aug 34.0 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
19 Aug 34.0 °C 37 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
20 Aug 32.9 °C 38 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
21 Aug 33.9 °C 36 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Aug 32.4 °C 38 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
23 Aug 27.7 °C 43 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
24 Aug 23.3 °C 46 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
25 Aug 19.2 °C 31 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Aug 24.4 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
27 Aug after 28.5 °C 29 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
28 Aug after 31.6 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
29 Aug after 34.8 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
30 Aug after 32.6 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
31 Aug after 30.4 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
1 Sept after 26.7 °C 33 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
2 Sept after 33.1 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Sept after 33.8 °C 27 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Sept after 33.5 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Sept after 26.9 °C 34 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Sept after 30.7 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Sept after 33.1 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Sept after 34.5 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
9 Sept after 35.2 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
10 Sept after 34.7 °C 30 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Sept after 34.1 °C 34 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
12 Sept after 30.1 °C 50 % 42 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Jul 2024
After · 2 Sept 2024

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 28 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 957 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 360: 24 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak957 µg/m³
Days over the guideline33 days
PM101,371 µg/m³
Optical depth6.63
222324252627282930311234567891011121314151617181920212223242526272829
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 · 1,564Every 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?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 July 2024 and 26 August 2024: 34 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 17,610 hectares (176.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Concepción (17,771 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, class Very 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
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.

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.