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Carrillo fire, 8 March 2018 Carrillo

Out · last detection 14 Mar 2018, 19:21 UTC

The fire started on 8 March 2018 in Carrillo, Costa Rica, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,472 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 60th largest in Provincia Guanacaste since 2016 (of 111 with a page). Number 9 in Costa Rica in 2018, of 11.

Burnt area
1,472ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
8 Mar 2018 – 13 Mar 2018
Municipalities hit
1
cantons
Started on
8 Mar
2018
Heat detections
48
in a single hotspot: 30 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
295MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Mar 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Mar13 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

891011121314

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
58km/h · peak gust
41%lowest humidity

It had gone 55 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.

What happened to each town

  1. Carrillo where it started
    1,482 ha reached on 8 Mar
    2.4 %

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)
8 Mar 31.2 °C 51 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Mar 31.9 °C 52 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
10 Mar 33.6 °C 48 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Mar 34.9 °C 41 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
12 Mar 34.7 °C 41 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
13 Mar 34.9 °C 41 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Mar after 33.5 °C 46 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Mar after 32.9 °C 47 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 Mar after 33.5 °C 42 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Mar after 33.0 °C 44 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Mar after 34.1 °C 38 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
19 Mar after 35.4 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Mar after 34.4 °C 38 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
21 Mar after 33.7 °C 39 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Mar after 32.6 °C 39 % 68 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
23 Mar after 32.8 °C 40 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Mar 2018
After · 20 Mar 2018

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 · 48Every 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 Carrillo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 March 2018 and 13 March 2018: 6 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 1,472 hectares (14.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Carrillo (1,482 ha, 2.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.9 °C, humidity dropped to 41 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, 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.