Carrillo fire, February 2024 Carrillo, Santa Cruz
The fire started on 19 February 2024 in Carrillo, Costa Rica, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,754 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 21th largest in Provincia Guanacaste since 2016 (of 111 with a page). The largest in Costa Rica in 2024, of 12.
The power measured by the satellite is low (19.1 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
- 2,754ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 27days
- 19 Feb 2024 – 16 Mar 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- cantons
- Started on
- 19 Feb
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 153
- in a single hotspot: 19 MW
- Danger at start
- 38
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 31MW
- 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 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 25 Mar.
This area had burned before
91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 881 ha in 2016, 320 ha in 2017, 351 ha in 2018, 1,135 ha in 2019, 1,190 ha in 2020, 2,307 ha in 2022, 31 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,498 ha that had burned before.
- 2,307 ha Carrillo fire, February 2022 12,049 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,190 ha Carrillo fire, March 2020 5,865 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 881 ha Carrillo fire, March 2016 2,709 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 763 ha Carrillo fire, March 2019 6,612 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 351 ha Carrillo fire, March 2018 2,633 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 320 ha Carrillo fire, March 2017 4,618 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 236 ha Carrillo fire, February 2019 1,151 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 99 ha Carrillo fire, February 2019 1,399 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 started1,855 ha reached on 19 Feb3.1 %
-
917 ha reached on 25 Feb0.7 %
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 Feb | 31.8 °C | 48 % | 67 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 20 Feb | 30.3 °C | 48 % | 61 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 21 Feb | 29.9 °C | 48 % | 60 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 22 Feb | 30.7 °C | 39 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 23 Feb | 33.3 °C | 38 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 24 Feb | 33.4 °C | 28 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 25 Feb | 30.2 °C | 42 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 26 Feb | 31.2 °C | 46 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 27 Feb | 31.8 °C | 42 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 28 Feb | 32.1 °C | 41 % | 59 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 29 Feb | 32.0 °C | 40 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 1 Mar | 32.5 °C | 42 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 2 Mar | 32.5 °C | 42 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 3 Mar | 34.0 °C | 33 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 4 Mar | 34.0 °C | 35 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 5 Mar | 34.3 °C | 35 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 6 Mar | 34.6 °C | 34 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 7 Mar | 36.4 °C | 27 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 8 Mar | 35.9 °C | 30 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 9 Mar | 34.9 °C | 36 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 10 Mar | 34.8 °C | 37 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 11 Mar | 32.7 °C | 43 % | 63 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 12 Mar | 32.0 °C | 46 % | 62 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 13 Mar | 33.4 °C | 37 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 14 Mar | 34.1 °C | 42 % | 48 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 36 |
| 15 Mar | 33.1 °C | 45 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 16 Mar | 34.3 °C | 43 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 17 Mar after | 34.6 °C | 41 % | 43 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 36 |
| 18 Mar after | 35.6 °C | 38 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 19 Mar after | 35.9 °C | 33 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 20 Mar after | 34.5 °C | 38 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 21 Mar after | 34.4 °C | 40 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 22 Mar after | 34.5 °C | 37 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 23 Mar after | 34.9 °C | 38 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 24 Mar after | 36.8 °C | 31 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 25 Mar after | 34.0 °C | 42 % | 36 km/h | 2.4 mm | Moderate 15 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 9 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 16 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 153Every 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 · 1 km away
- 12,049 haCarrillo6 February 2022 · 29 days · 4 km away
- 5,865 haCarrilloMarch 2020 · 27 days · 4 km away
- 4,618 haCarrilloMarch 2017 · 22 days · 7 km away
- 6,612 haCarrillo19 March 2019 · 21 days · 8 km away
- 5,578 haSanta Cruz26 February 2019 · 34 days · 24 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 19 February 2024 to 16 March 2024 (27 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 February 2024 to 9 March 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,754 hectares (27.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Carrillo (1,855 ha, 3.1 %); Santa Cruz (917 ha, 0.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 67 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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 25 February 2024 to 9 March 2024. 153 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.