Skip to content
worldfires
CR · Costa Rica · →

Carrillo fire, 16 February 2022 Carrillo

Out · last detection 24 Feb 2022, 07:19 UTC

The fire started on 16 February 2022 in Carrillo, Costa Rica, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,600 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 47th largest in Provincia Guanacaste since 2016 (of 111 with a page). Number 9 in Costa Rica in 2022, of 15.

The power measured by the satellite is low (10.3 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
1,600ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
16 Feb 2022 – 23 Feb 2022
Municipalities hit
1
cantons
Started on
16 Feb
2022
Heat detections
58
in a single hotspot: 10 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
206MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Feb 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Feb23 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

161718192021222324

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

32°high
62km/h · peak gust
39%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 15 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Carrillo where it started
    1,610 ha reached on 16 Feb
    2.7 %

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)
16 Feb 30.9 °C 39 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Feb 31.7 °C 42 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
18 Feb 31.8 °C 46 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
19 Feb 29.7 °C 46 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Feb 30.6 °C 41 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Feb 30.7 °C 43 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Feb 30.4 °C 44 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
23 Feb 30.7 °C 45 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Feb after 31.0 °C 43 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Feb after 30.8 °C 41 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Feb after 30.4 °C 39 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
27 Feb after 30.8 °C 42 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Feb after 31.5 °C 40 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
1 Mar after 30.6 °C 45 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
2 Mar after 30.6 °C 47 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Mar after 31.0 °C 47 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Mar after 30.1 °C 49 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Mar after 30.5 °C 48 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Feb 2022
After · 2 Mar 2022

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 · 58Every 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 16 February 2022 and 23 February 2022: 8 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 1,600 hectares (16.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Carrillo (1,610 ha, 2.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.8 °C, humidity dropped to 39 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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.