Concepcion fire, August 2024 Concepcion
The fire started on 18 August 2024 in Concepcion, Paraguay, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,972 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 121th largest in Concepción since 2016 (of 195 with a page). Number 119 in Paraguay in 2024, of 190.
- Burnt area
- 1,972ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 18 Aug 2024 – 22 Aug 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 18 Aug
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 54
- in a single hotspot: 53 MW
- Danger at start
- 39
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 568MW
- 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 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 10.8 mm on 23 Aug.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,140 ha in 2017, 40 ha in 2018, 1,764 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,964 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
Concepcion where it started1,979 ha reached on 18 Aug0.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 Aug | 38.7 °C | 19 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 19 Aug | 38.1 °C | 21 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 20 Aug | 33.2 °C | 31 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 21 Aug | 37.9 °C | 21 % | 60 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 22 Aug | 27.2 °C | 31 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 23 Aug after | 16.9 °C | 76 % | 41 km/h | 10.8 mm | Very low 0 |
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 20 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 95 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 62: 4.1 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 · 54Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 8,753 haSan Carlos15 August 2024 · 8 days · 14 km away
- 89,177 haSan Carlos16 August 2021 · 10 days · 20 km away
- 13,439 haConcepcion17 August 2021 · 9 days · 20 km away
- 5,961 haSan Carlos7 September 2019 · 4 days · 25 km away
- 18,830 haConcepcion6 September 2024 · 7 days · 36 km away
- 8,491 haSgto. Jose Felix Lopez8 August 2017 · 5 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Concepcion fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 August 2024 and 22 August 2024: 5 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 1,972 hectares (19.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Concepcion (1,979 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.7 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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
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.