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Bagaces fire, 6 April 2016 Bagaces

Out · last detection 23 Apr 2016, 07:13 UTC

The fire started on 6 April 2016 in Bagaces, Costa Rica, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,657 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 23th largest in Provincia Guanacaste since 2016 (of 111 with a page). Number 6 in Costa Rica in 2016, of 22.

Burnt area
2,657ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
18days
6 Apr 2016 – 23 Apr 2016
Municipalities hit
1
cantons
Started on
6 Apr
2016
Heat detections
169
in a single hotspot: 40 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Energy released
871MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Apr 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Apr23 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

67891011121314151617181920212223

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
74km/h · peak gust
41%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.8 mm on 24 Apr.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Bagaces where it started
    2,674 ha reached on 6 Apr
    2.1 %

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)
6 Apr 30.0 °C 54 % 70 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
7 Apr 31.1 °C 49 % 74 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
8 Apr 29.6 °C 60 % 64 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
9 Apr 30.9 °C 46 % 72 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
10 Apr 30.5 °C 48 % 73 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
11 Apr 31.6 °C 49 % 68 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
12 Apr 32.6 °C 45 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
13 Apr 32.0 °C 53 % 46 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 17
14 Apr 32.5 °C 46 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
15 Apr 32.0 °C 49 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
16 Apr 32.7 °C 46 % 38 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 19
17 Apr 34.2 °C 41 % 38 km/h 2.0 mm Moderate 14
18 Apr 30.3 °C 57 % 53 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 19
19 Apr 32.2 °C 52 % 53 km/h 0.3 mm High 22
20 Apr 31.9 °C 48 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
21 Apr 32.4 °C 47 % 46 km/h 0.6 mm High 22
22 Apr 32.4 °C 53 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
23 Apr 31.8 °C 56 % 34 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 15
24 Apr after 32.3 °C 57 % 32 km/h 4.8 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Mar 2016
After · 30 Apr 2016

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 · 169Every 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 Costa Rica ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Bagaces fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 April 2016 and 23 April 2016: 18 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 2,657 hectares (26.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bagaces (2,674 ha, 2.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 41 % and gusts hit 74 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Costa Rica (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

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.

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 (CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication). 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.