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Concepcion fire, August 2020 Concepcion

Out · last detection 10 Aug 2020, 17:30 UTC

The fire started on 7 August 2020 in Concepcion, Paraguay, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,157 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 101th largest in Concepción since 2016 (of 195 with a page). Number 240 in Paraguay in 2020, of 424.

Burnt area
2,157ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
7 Aug 2020 – 10 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
7 Aug
2020
Heat detections
67
in a single hotspot: 93 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
598MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Aug10 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

78910

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
45km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 29 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 9.7 mm on 12 Aug.

This area had burned before

51% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,187 ha in 2017, 457 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,095 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Concepcion where it started
    2,162 ha reached on 7 Aug
    0.3 %

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)
7 Aug 33.2 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Aug 33.1 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Aug 33.3 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Aug 34.6 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
11 Aug after 33.5 °C 22 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
12 Aug after 21.4 °C 46 % 38 km/h 9.7 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Jul 2020
After · 17 Aug 2020

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 · 67Every 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 Paraguay ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Concepcion fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 August 2020 and 10 August 2020: 4 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 2,157 hectares (21.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Concepcion (2,162 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.6 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Paraguay (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: 132 · 911

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 132 · 911.

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 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)). 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.