Carrillo fire, 11 February 2022 Carrillo, Santa Cruz
The fire started on 11 February 2022 in Carrillo, Costa Rica, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,049 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 2th largest in Provincia Guanacaste since 2016 (of 111 with a page). The largest in Costa Rica in 2022, of 15.
- Burnt area
- 12,049ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 24days
- 11 Feb 2022 – 6 Mar 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- cantons
- Started on
- 11 Feb
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 687
- in a single hotspot: 42 MW
- Danger at start
- 28
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 3.2GW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,896 ha in 2016, 2,084 ha in 2017, 1,851 ha in 2018, 7,046 ha in 2019, 4,679 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,935 ha that had burned before.
- 4,820 ha Carrillo fire, March 2019 6,612 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,679 ha Carrillo fire, March 2020 5,865 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,408 ha Carrillo fire, March 2016 2,709 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,979 ha Carrillo fire, March 2017 4,618 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,851 ha Carrillo fire, March 2018 2,633 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,011 ha Carrillo fire, February 2019 1,399 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 789 ha Carrillo fire, March 2019 1,151 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 487 ha Carrillo fire, April 2016 1,003 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Carrillo where it started9,006 ha reached on 9 Feb15 %
-
3,121 ha reached on 15 Feb2.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 Feb | 30.4 °C | 48 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 10 Feb | 31.0 °C | 47 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 11 Feb | 31.4 °C | 47 % | 50 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 30 |
| 12 Feb | 31.7 °C | 41 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 13 Feb | 29.7 °C | 52 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 14 Feb | 30.3 °C | 48 % | 57 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 15 Feb | 29.6 °C | 49 % | 63 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 16 Feb | 30.9 °C | 39 % | 61 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 17 Feb | 31.6 °C | 42 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 18 Feb | 31.7 °C | 46 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 19 Feb | 29.6 °C | 46 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 20 Feb | 30.6 °C | 40 % | 59 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 21 Feb | 30.7 °C | 43 % | 62 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 22 Feb | 30.3 °C | 44 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 23 Feb | 30.7 °C | 45 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 24 Feb | 31.0 °C | 43 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 25 Feb | 30.7 °C | 41 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 26 Feb | 30.3 °C | 39 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 27 Feb | 30.7 °C | 42 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 28 Feb | 31.5 °C | 40 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 1 Mar | 30.6 °C | 45 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 2 Mar | 30.6 °C | 47 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 3 Mar | 30.9 °C | 47 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 4 Mar | 30.1 °C | 49 % | 61 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 5 Mar | 30.4 °C | 48 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 6 Mar | 31.9 °C | 45 % | 46 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 29 |
| 7 Mar after | 32.2 °C | 44 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 8 Mar after | 32.9 °C | 39 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 9 Mar after | 34.4 °C | 29 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 10 Mar after | 34.3 °C | 31 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 11 Mar after | 33.5 °C | 32 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 12 Mar after | 33.9 °C | 34 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 13 Mar after | 31.5 °C | 43 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 14 Mar after | 32.1 °C | 45 % | 52 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 38 |
| 15 Mar after | 33.4 °C | 37 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 16 Mar after | 32.9 °C | 42 % | 52 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 35 |
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 · 687Every 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 · 3 km away
- 5,865 haCarrilloMarch 2020 · 24 days · 4 km away
- 4,618 haCarrilloMarch 2017 · 22 days · 11 km away
- 6,612 haCarrillo21 March 2019 · 17 days · 12 km away
- 5,578 haSanta Cruz5 March 2019 · 24 days · 25 km away
- 4,354 haSanta Cruz12 February 2016 · 15 days · 27 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Carrillo fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 February 2022 and 6 March 2022: 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 12,049 hectares (120.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Carrillo (9,006 ha, 15 %); Santa Cruz (3,121 ha, 2.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 31.9 °C, humidity dropped to 39 % and gusts hit 63 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.