How long did the Conchagua fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 March 2017 and 24 March 2017: 7 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 1,262 hectares (12.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Conchagua (1,044 ha, 3.8 %); Null (225 ha, 2.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 34.0 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, class Very high.

Where does this data come from?

From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of El Salvador (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

SV · El Salvador · 2017-03-18 → 2017-03-24

Conchagua fire, 18 March 2017 Conchagua, Null

Out · last detection 24 Mar 2017, 18:38 UTC

The fire started on 18 March 2017 in Conchagua, El Salvador, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,262 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 11th largest in Departamento de La Unión since 2016 (of 16 with a page). Number 8 in El Salvador in 2017, of 17.

The power measured by the satellite is low (20.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Intipuca · 2019 Intipuca · 2026 Intipuca · 2017 Jucuarán · 2017

Burnt area: 1,262ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 7days; 18 Mar 2017 – 24 Mar 2017
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 18 Mar; 2017
Heat detections: 34; in a single hotspot: 20 MW
Danger at start: 34; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 32MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Mar24 Mar

Play back 24 Mar 2017

How it evolved, day by day

18 Mar 19 Mar 20 Mar 21 Mar 22 Mar 23 Mar 24 Mar

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

The weather it burned in

34°high

50km/h · peak gust

27%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 0.8% of the area of London (13 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Conchagua where it started

1,044 ha reached on 19 Mar

3.8 %
Null

225 ha reached on 18 Mar

2.5 %

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 Mar	32.8 °C	38 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
19 Mar	34.0 °C	32 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
20 Mar	33.0 °C	33 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
21 Mar	32.4 °C	30 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
22 Mar	32.0 °C	27 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
23 Mar	31.5 °C	32 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
24 Mar	31.7 °C	27 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
25 Mar after	31.5 °C	39 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
26 Mar after	30.2 °C	49 %	41 km/h	0.4 mm	High 30
27 Mar after	29.3 °C	54 %	40 km/h	0.9 mm	Moderate 20
28 Mar after	29.4 °C	56 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
29 Mar after	29.3 °C	55 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
30 Mar after	29.1 °C	55 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
31 Mar after	30.3 °C	55 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
1 Apr after	31.3 °C	43 %	31 km/h	0.1 mm	High 25
2 Apr after	31.3 °C	44 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
3 Apr after	31.2 °C	50 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
4 Apr after	31.1 °C	58 %	38 km/h	0.6 mm	Moderate 21
5 Apr after	32.3 °C	46 %	34 km/h	0.1 mm	High 25

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 11 Mar 2017

After · 31 Mar 2017

Before After

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 · 34Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in El Salvador ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Conchagua fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 March 2017 and 24 March 2017: 7 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 1,262 hectares (12.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Conchagua (1,044 ha, 3.8 %); Null (225 ha, 2.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 34.0 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?: From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of El Salvador (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

Protección Civil ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 34 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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 (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.

Where it burned