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Carrillo fire, 21 March 2019 Carrillo, Santa Cruz

Out · last detection 6 Apr 2019, 06:59 UTC

The fire started on 21 March 2019 in Carrillo, Costa Rica, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,612 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 3th largest in Provincia Guanacaste since 2016 (of 111 with a page). The largest in Costa Rica in 2019, of 16.

The power measured by the satellite is low (23.9 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
6,612ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
17days
21 Mar 2019 – 6 Apr 2019
Municipalities hit
2
cantons
Started on
21 Mar
2019
Heat detections
440
in a single hotspot: 24 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Apr 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Mar6 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

2122232425262728293031123456

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
63km/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: 1.9 mm on 11 Apr.

This area had burned before

32% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,135 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Carrillo where it started
    5,206 ha reached on 21 Mar
    8.6 %
  2. Santa Cruz
    1,446 ha reached on 23 Mar
    1.1 %

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)
21 Mar 33.0 °C 44 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Mar 32.7 °C 39 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Mar 32.5 °C 44 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
24 Mar 32.6 °C 44 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Mar 32.0 °C 49 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Mar 32.7 °C 45 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
27 Mar 32.0 °C 44 % 63 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Mar 32.3 °C 44 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
29 Mar 33.1 °C 42 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
30 Mar 33.3 °C 41 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
31 Mar 33.7 °C 40 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
1 Apr 33.3 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
2 Apr 34.8 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
3 Apr 34.2 °C 35 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Apr 33.0 °C 41 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
5 Apr 33.7 °C 36 % 39 km/h 2.7 mm Moderate 18
6 Apr 32.3 °C 44 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
7 Apr after 31.3 °C 53 % 31 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 13
8 Apr after 31.7 °C 48 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
9 Apr after 32.6 °C 43 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
10 Apr after 32.5 °C 49 % 33 km/h 0.2 mm High 26
11 Apr after 31.1 °C 61 % 28 km/h 1.9 mm Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Mar 2019
After · 13 Apr 2019

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 · 440Every 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 21 March 2019 and 6 April 2019: 17 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 6,612 hectares (66.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Carrillo (5,206 ha, 8.6 %); Santa Cruz (1,446 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 63 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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
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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.