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Carrillo fire, 12 April 2024 Carrillo

Out · last detection 15 Apr 2024, 19:22 UTC

The fire started on 12 April 2024 in Carrillo, Costa Rica, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,227 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 80th largest in Provincia Guanacaste since 2016 (of 111 with a page). Number 10 in Costa Rica in 2024, of 12.

Burnt area
1,227ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
12 Apr 2024 – 15 Apr 2024
Municipalities hit
1
cantons
Started on
12 Apr
2024
Heat detections
62
in a single hotspot: 60 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
632MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Apr 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Apr15 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

12131415

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
66km/h · peak gust
36%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 22 Apr.

This area had burned before

91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,055 ha in 2019, 479 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,113 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Carrillo where it started
    1,235 ha reached on 12 Apr
    2.0 %

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)
12 Apr 35.1 °C 37 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
13 Apr 34.5 °C 36 % 66 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Apr 34.7 °C 41 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Apr 35.0 °C 39 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
16 Apr after 34.6 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
17 Apr after 34.3 °C 35 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
18 Apr after 34.8 °C 38 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
19 Apr after 32.9 °C 45 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
20 Apr after 32.5 °C 46 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
21 Apr after 31.9 °C 54 % 36 km/h 0.5 mm High 24
22 Apr after 33.3 °C 48 % 35 km/h 2.5 mm Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Apr 2024
After · 22 Apr 2024

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 · Copernicus

On 11 April 2024 the air beside the fire reached 25 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak25 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1037 µg/m³
Optical depth0.67
101112131415161718
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 62Every 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 12 April 2024 and 15 April 2024: 4 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 1,227 hectares (12.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Carrillo (1,235 ha, 2.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.1 °C, humidity dropped to 36 % and gusts hit 66 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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.