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Bagaces fire, 7 April 2016 Bagaces

Out · last detection 14 Apr 2016, 19:28 UTC

The fire started on 7 April 2016 in Bagaces, Costa Rica, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,467 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 14th largest in Provincia Guanacaste since 2016 (of 111 with a page). Number 2 in Costa Rica in 2016, of 22.

Burnt area
3,467ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
7 Apr 2016 – 13 Apr 2016
Municipalities hit
1
cantons
Started on
7 Apr
2016
Heat detections
159
in a single hotspot: 35 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Apr 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Apr13 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

7891011121314

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
69km/h · peak gust
35%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 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
    3,489 ha reached on 7 Apr
    2.7 %

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 Apr 33.4 °C 40 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Apr 32.1 °C 49 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Apr 33.3 °C 37 % 69 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 Apr 32.6 °C 42 % 66 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 Apr 34.2 °C 38 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Apr 35.4 °C 35 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
13 Apr 35.2 °C 42 % 41 km/h 1.7 mm Moderate 19
14 Apr after 35.1 °C 38 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
15 Apr after 34.3 °C 42 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
16 Apr after 35.2 °C 39 % 36 km/h 0.6 mm High 26
17 Apr after 36.5 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
18 Apr after 32.9 °C 49 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Apr after 34.5 °C 45 % 53 km/h 0.2 mm High 34
20 Apr after 34.6 °C 41 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Apr after 35.2 °C 37 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
22 Apr after 35.0 °C 44 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
23 Apr after 34.2 °C 47 % 34 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
24 Apr after 34.8 °C 47 % 31 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 20

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Mar 2016
After · 20 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 · 159Every 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 7 April 2016 and 13 April 2016: 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 3,467 hectares (34.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bagaces (3,489 ha, 2.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 69 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, class Very 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.