Carrillo fire, March 2020 Carrillo, Santa Cruz
The fire started on 13 March 2020 in Carrillo, Costa Rica, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,865 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 4th largest in Provincia Guanacaste since 2016 (of 111 with a page). The largest in Costa Rica in 2020, of 11.
- Burnt area
- 5,865ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 24days
- 13 Mar 2020 – 5 Apr 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- cantons
- Started on
- 13 Mar
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 324
- in a single hotspot: 40 MW
- Danger at start
- 32
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 1.8GW
- sum of detected power
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 40 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.7 mm on 13 Apr.
This area had burned before
73% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,274 ha in 2016, 2,410 ha in 2018, 1,508 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,286 ha that had burned before.
- 2,410 ha Carrillo fire, March 2018 2,633 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,291 ha Carrillo fire, March 2016 2,709 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,147 ha Carrillo fire, February 2019 1,399 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 982 ha Carrillo fire, April 2016 1,003 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 200 ha Santa Cruz fire, March 2019 1,012 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 103 ha Carrillo fire, March 2019 6,612 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 58 ha Carrillo fire, March 2019 1,151 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Carrillo where it started4,765 ha reached on 11 Mar7.9 %
-
1,138 ha reached on 24 Mar0.8 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 Mar | 32.5 °C | 43 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 11 Mar | 31.3 °C | 47 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 12 Mar | 31.5 °C | 47 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 13 Mar | 33.1 °C | 43 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 14 Mar | 33.2 °C | 44 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 15 Mar | 31.9 °C | 44 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 16 Mar | 32.0 °C | 43 % | 59 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 17 Mar | 32.4 °C | 42 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 18 Mar | 32.2 °C | 41 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 19 Mar | 32.4 °C | 38 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 20 Mar | 31.8 °C | 41 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 21 Mar | 31.5 °C | 40 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 22 Mar | 32.1 °C | 42 % | 61 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 23 Mar | 31.9 °C | 42 % | 59 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 24 Mar | 32.9 °C | 41 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 25 Mar | 34.3 °C | 34 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 26 Mar | 34.2 °C | 36 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 27 Mar | 35.4 °C | 25 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 28 Mar | 33.4 °C | 41 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 29 Mar | 33.0 °C | 36 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 30 Mar | 34.1 °C | 39 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 31 Mar | 34.4 °C | 36 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 1 Apr | 35.1 °C | 37 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 2 Apr | 35.2 °C | 25 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 3 Apr | 36.3 °C | 27 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 4 Apr | 36.6 °C | 23 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 5 Apr | 36.4 °C | 32 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 6 Apr after | 36.9 °C | 30 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 7 Apr after | 34.7 °C | 40 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 8 Apr after | 35.1 °C | 42 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 9 Apr after | 35.2 °C | 38 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 10 Apr after | 37.5 °C | 26 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 11 Apr after | 36.2 °C | 28 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 12 Apr after | 35.8 °C | 36 % | 41 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 36 |
| 13 Apr after | 33.7 °C | 44 % | 31 km/h | 7.7 mm | Low 7 |
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 · 324Every 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 · 4 km away
- 12,049 haCarrillo11 February 2022 · 24 days · 4 km away
- 6,612 haCarrillo21 March 2019 · 17 days · 8 km away
- 4,618 haCarrilloMarch 2017 · 22 days · 8 km away
- 5,578 haSanta Cruz5 March 2019 · 24 days · 27 km away
- 4,354 haSanta Cruz12 February 2016 · 15 days · 29 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Carrillo fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 March 2020 and 5 April 2020: 24 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 5,865 hectares (58.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Carrillo (4,765 ha, 7.9 %); Santa Cruz (1,138 ha, 0.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 61 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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
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.