Skip to content
worldfires
BO · Bolivia · →

Concepción fire, August 2018 Concepción

Out · last detection 2 Sept 2018, 04:35 UTC

The fire started on 24 August 2018 in Concepción, Bolivia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,952 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 449th largest in Santa Cruz since 2016 (of 834 with a page). Number 29 in Bolivia in 2018, of 80.

Burnt area
4,952ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
24 Aug 2018 – 2 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
24 Aug
2018
Heat detections
304
in a single hotspot: 160 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Sept 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Aug2 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

242526272829303112

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
55km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

81% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,827 ha in 2016, 5,897 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,991 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Concepción 93,392 inhabitants where it started
    4,989 ha
    0.2 %

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)
24 Aug 33.4 °C 40 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
25 Aug 27.6 °C 32 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
26 Aug 26.2 °C 28 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
27 Aug 30.4 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
28 Aug 34.9 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
29 Aug 34.3 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
30 Aug 34.2 °C 39 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
31 Aug 35.5 °C 36 % 44 km/h 0.3 mm High 31
1 Sept 30.8 °C 46 % 38 km/h 4.1 mm Low 9
2 Sept 19.0 °C 58 % 55 km/h 2.0 mm Low 7
3 Sept after 29.2 °C 18 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Sept after 29.4 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
5 Sept after 31.5 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Sept after 33.0 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
7 Sept after 35.1 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 Sept after 36.1 °C 28 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
9 Sept after 37.3 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Sept after 37.0 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Sept after 36.6 °C 28 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
12 Sept after 36.2 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Aug 2018
After · 9 Sept 2018

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 304Every 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 August 2018 and 2 September 2018: 10 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 4,952 hectares (49.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Concepción (4,989 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 55 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 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.