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Concepción fire, 22 August 2023 Concepción, San Roque

Out · last detection 1 Sept 2023, 06:02 UTC

The fire started on 22 August 2023 in Concepción, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,003 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 8th largest in Corrientes since 2016 (of 203 with a page). Number 3 in Argentina in 2023, of 180.

Burnt area
15,003ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
22 Aug 2023 – 1 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
2
departments
Started on
22 Aug
2023
Heat detections
441
in a single hotspot: 433 MW
Danger at start
22
High · FWI index
Average daily power
1.1GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

1 Sept 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Aug1 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

22 Aug 2023 · 1,801 MW · 42 24 Aug 2023 · 1,014 MW · 46 25 Aug 2023 · 757 MW · 53 26 Aug 2023 · 704 MW · 36 27 Aug 2023 · 369 MW · 29 28 Aug 2023 · 739 MW · 32 29 Aug 2023 · 540 MW · 33 30 Aug 2023 · 4,361 MW · 112 31 Aug 2023 · 537 MW · 49 1 Sept 2023 · 19 MW · 9
22 Aug 25 Aug 27 Aug 29 Aug 30 Aug 31 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
50km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.6 mm on 3 Sept.

This area had burned before

30% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 56 ha in 2017, 399 ha in 2018, 4,169 ha in 2020, 512 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,477 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Concepción where it started
    7,684 ha reached on 22 Aug
    1.4 %
  2. San Roque
    7,399 ha reached on 24 Aug
    3.0 %

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)
22 Aug 33.4 °C 40 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
23 Aug 22.5 °C 55 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
24 Aug 22.6 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
25 Aug 22.0 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
26 Aug 19.8 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
27 Aug 19.8 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
28 Aug 21.4 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
29 Aug 25.8 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
30 Aug 29.1 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
31 Aug 30.7 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
1 Sept 22.7 °C 62 % 38 km/h 11.8 mm Very low 1
2 Sept after 25.8 °C 66 % 34 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 4
3 Sept after 25.9 °C 68 % 41 km/h 7.6 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Aug 2023
After · 8 Sept 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 23 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 31 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak31 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1044 µg/m³
Optical depth0.81
2021222324252627282930311234
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 · 441Every 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 Argentina ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Concepción fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 August 2023 and 1 September 2023: 11 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 15,003 hectares (150.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Concepción (7,684 ha, 1.4 %); San Roque (7,399 ha, 3.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.4 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Argentina (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: 911 · 100

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 911 · 100.

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 ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). 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.