Burned area
satellite only2,433ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 20 Mar 2019 – 9 Apr 2019
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
CR · Costa Rica · –
La Cruz fire, March 2019 La Cruz
Out · last detection 9 Apr 2019, 18:49 UTC
The fire started on 20 March 2019 in La Cruz, Costa Rica, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,433 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 24th largest in Provincia Guanacaste since 2016 (of 88 with a page). Number 4 in Costa Rica in 2019, of 16.
The power measured by the satellite is low (27.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only21days
20 Mar 2019 to 9 Apr 2019: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 9 Apr 2019, 18:49 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only20 Mar 2019
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 20 Mar 2019
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only170
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 28 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 20 Mar 2019 – 9 Apr 2019
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only232MW
Total radiative power on 28 March 2019; hotspots that day: 30.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 28 Mar 2019
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model22.3FWI · high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 60.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 20 Mar 2019, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model33.1°C · 45% RH
High of 33.1 °C and minimum humidity of 45% on 9 April 2019; gusts of 77 km/h on 27 March 2019.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 20 Mar 2019 – 9 Apr 2019
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
Living inside
model≈ 150people
Estimated residents inside the perimeter and 1.1 ha of built-up area (100 m grid, epoch 2020).
- Source
- GHSL R2023A · JRC
- Date
- calculated on 24 October 2026
+− cross-check
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.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
What was saved on 24 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 2,433 ha
- Dates
- 20 Mar 2019 – 9 Apr 2019
- Name
- La Cruz
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/la-cruz-2019-03?v=2026-10-24A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire la-cruz-2019-03.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-03-20 | 2 | 6 | 30.3 | 21.9 | 60 | 23 | 58 | 0 | 22.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2019-03-21 | 3 | 7 | 30.5 | 23.6 | 54 | 26.3 | 65.9 | 0 | 24.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2019-03-22 | 11 | 54 | 29 | 23.7 | 58 | 30 | 74.2 | 0 | 27.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2019-03-23 | 15 | 59 | 30.1 | 22 | 52 | 27.4 | 68.8 | 0 | 26 | alto | 1 |
| 2019-03-24 | 9 | 33 | 30 | 22 | 53 | 27 | 68.8 | 0 | 26 | alto | 1 |
| 2019-03-25 | 7 | 17 | 29.4 | 21.6 | 63 | 25.6 | 64.8 | 0 | 23.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2019-03-26 | 2 | 3 | 30.3 | 23.9 | 54 | 28.8 | 70.6 | 0 | 26.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2019-03-27 | 13 | 84 | 29.9 | 24.1 | 54 | 32 | 77.4 | 0 | 28.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2019-03-28 | 30 | 232 | 29.1 | 23.7 | 58 | 29.8 | 73.8 | 0 | 27.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2019-03-29 | 16 | 55 | 29.9 | 22 | 56 | 26.2 | 66.6 | 0 | 25.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2019-03-30 | 5 | 13 | 31.2 | 21.5 | 49 | 23.2 | 56.9 | 0 | 25.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2019-03-31 | 5 | 13 | 32.4 | 21.3 | 48 | 20.3 | 53.6 | 0 | 25 | alto | 1 |
| 2019-04-01 | 0 | 0 | 32 | 21.4 | 44 | 19.2 | 51.1 | 0 | 26.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2019-04-02 | 6 | 29 | 31.1 | 23.5 | 59 | 24.2 | 60.5 | 0 | 26.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2019-04-03 | 3 | 23 | 31.2 | 24 | 52 | 27.7 | 70.9 | 0 | 29.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2019-04-04 | 5 | 19 | 30.6 | 24.2 | 55 | 26.6 | 65.5 | 0 | 29.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2019-04-05 | 4 | 5 | 30.6 | 23.4 | 50 | 23.1 | 56.5 | 0 | 27.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2019-04-06 | 1 | 1 | 31.4 | 21.9 | 50 | 20.2 | 51.1 | 0 | 25.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2019-04-07 | 8 | 33 | 31.8 | 23.2 | 54 | 19.6 | 50.8 | 0.1 | 25.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2019-04-08 | 16 | 157 | 32.4 | 22.6 | 45 | 15.2 | 41.8 | 0 | 24.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2019-04-09 | 9 | 59 | 33.1 | 23.8 | 45 | 11.5 | 34.9 | 0 | 22.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2019-04-10 | 0 | 0 | 33.9 | 23.8 | 40 | 6.2 | 25.2 | 0.1 | 21.9 | alto | 0 |
| 2019-04-11 | 0 | 0 | 32.9 | 24.2 | 51 | 5.1 | 25.2 | 2.2 | 7 | bajo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 2,433ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 21days
- 20 Mar 2019 – 9 Apr 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- cantons
- Started on
- 20 Mar
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 170
- in a single hotspot: 28 MW
- Danger at start
- 22
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 45MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
20 Mar9 Apr
9 Apr 2019
How it evolved, day by day
20 Mar
24 Mar
28 Mar
2 Apr
6 Apr
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
33°high
77km/h · peak gust
44%lowest humidity
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.2 mm on 11 Apr.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
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
-
La Cruz where it started2,448 ha reached on 20 Mar1.7 %
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 2020Built-up area1.1 ha
Residents≈ 150
Inside the perimeter there were about 1.1 hectares of built-up land and about 150 residents (GHSL 2020, 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.
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)
Started with Strong wind: 50 % of the area in Costa Rica 60 days without rain: 45 % of the area in Costa Rica
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 Mar | 30.3 °C | 60 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 21 Mar | 30.5 °C | 54 % | 66 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 22 Mar | 29.0 °C | 58 % | 74 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 23 Mar | 30.1 °C | 52 % | 69 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 24 Mar | 30.0 °C | 53 % | 69 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 25 Mar | 29.4 °C | 63 % | 65 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 26 Mar | 30.3 °C | 54 % | 71 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 27 Mar | 29.9 °C | 54 % | 77 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 28 Mar | 29.1 °C | 58 % | 74 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 29 Mar | 29.9 °C | 56 % | 67 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 30 Mar | 31.2 °C | 49 % | 57 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 31 Mar | 32.4 °C | 48 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 1 Apr | 32.0 °C | 44 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 2 Apr | 31.1 °C | 59 % | 60 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 3 Apr | 31.2 °C | 52 % | 71 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 4 Apr | 30.6 °C | 55 % | 66 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 5 Apr | 30.6 °C | 50 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 6 Apr | 31.4 °C | 50 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 7 Apr | 31.8 °C | 54 % | 51 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 25 |
| 8 Apr | 32.4 °C | 45 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 9 Apr | 33.1 °C | 45 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 10 Apr after | 33.9 °C | 40 % | 25 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 22 |
| 11 Apr after | 32.9 °C | 51 % | 25 km/h | 2.2 mm | Low 7 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 22.3, a minimum humidity of 60% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 7.
FWI at the start
22.3
Minimum humidity
60 %
Days without rain
60+
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · La Cruz fire, March 2019
2,433 ha
21 days
FWI 22.3
Min. humidity 60 %
Tola (Municipio) fire, March 2017
1,127 ha
4 days
FWI 22.7
Min. humidity 64 %
53 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.2 mm on 3 Apr.
Liberia fire, January 2019
1,257 ha
12 days
FWI 20.8
Min. humidity 52 %
17 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Liberia fire, February 2022
3,714 ha
10 days
FWI 23.5
Min. humidity 50 %
34 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Juigalpa (Municipio) fire, April 2018
1,537 ha
4 days
FWI 23.6
Min. humidity 50 %
122 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.2 mm on 8 Apr.
Bagaces fire, March 2022
2,615 ha
12 days
FWI 30.0
Min. humidity 53 %
69 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
What happened to them
Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 7. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
2.2 mmfirst rain
11 Apr2 days after it ended
77km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 9 Apr, and on 11 Apr 2.2 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 13 Mar 2019
After · 16 Apr 2019
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · 170Every 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 time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the La Cruz fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 March 2019 and 9 April 2019: 21 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 2,433 hectares (24.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered La Cruz (2,448 ha, 1.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.1 °C, humidity dropped to 44 % and gusts hit 77 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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 · 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.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 170 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 2020, 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.