Carrillo fire, 27 February 2019 Carrillo, Santa Cruz
The fire started on 27 February 2019 in Carrillo, Costa Rica, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,151 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 87th largest in Provincia Guanacaste since 2016 (of 111 with a page). Number 13 in Costa Rica in 2019, of 16.
The power measured by the satellite is low (12.5 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…
- Burnt area
- 1,151ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 13days
- 27 Feb 2019 – 11 Mar 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- cantons
- Started on
- 27 Feb
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 45
- in a single hotspot: 12 MW
- Danger at start
- 37
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 24MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
37% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 110 ha in 2016, 273 ha in 2017, 87 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 428 ha that had burned before.
- 273 ha Carrillo fire, April 2017 1,484 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 110 ha Carrillo fire, March 2016 2,709 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 87 ha Carrillo fire, March 2018 2,633 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Carrillo where it started729 ha reached on 27 Feb1.2 %
-
429 ha reached on 3 Mar0.3 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 Mar | 33.0 °C | 40 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 6 Mar | 31.8 °C | 40 % | 70 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 7 Mar | 31.6 °C | 45 % | 70 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 8 Mar | 32.3 °C | 40 % | 68 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 9 Mar | 32.3 °C | 41 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 10 Mar | 32.6 °C | 45 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 11 Mar | 32.6 °C | 48 % | 61 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 12 Mar after | 32.9 °C | 43 % | 64 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 13 Mar after | 32.8 °C | 39 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 14 Mar after | 34.3 °C | 37 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 15 Mar after | 33.6 °C | 41 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 16 Mar after | 31.8 °C | 46 % | 60 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 17 Mar after | 31.9 °C | 48 % | 66 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 18 Mar after | 32.0 °C | 42 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 19 Mar after | 34.6 °C | 40 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 20 Mar after | 33.4 °C | 44 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 21 Mar after | 32.9 °C | 44 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
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.
Detections table · 45Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 15,880 haCarrilloJanuary 2026 · 56 days · 5 km away
- 12,049 haCarrillo6 February 2022 · 29 days · 6 km away
- 5,865 haCarrilloMarch 2020 · 27 days · 8 km away
- 4,618 haCarrilloFebruary 2017 · 28 days · 12 km away
- 6,612 haCarrilloMarch 2019 · 21 days · 14 km away
- 5,578 haSanta Cruz26 February 2019 · 34 days · 19 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Carrillo fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 February 2019 to 11 March 2019 (13 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 March 2019 to 11 March 2019.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,151 hectares (11.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Carrillo (729 ha, 1.2 %); Santa Cruz (429 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 40 % and gusts hit 70 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 5 March 2019 → 27 February 2019.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 5 March 2019 to 11 March 2019. 45 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.
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.