Burned area
satellite only4,192ha
Union of 2 GWIS (Copernicus) perimeters: overlapping areas count once.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 12 Feb 2016 – 28 Feb 2016
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
CR · Costa Rica · –
Santa Cruz fire, 12 February 2016 Santa Cruz
Out · last detection 28 Feb 2016, 18:51 UTC
The fire started on 12 February 2016 in Santa Cruz, Costa Rica, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,192 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 6th largest in Provincia Guanacaste since 2016 (of 88 with a page). The largest in Costa Rica in 2016, of 22.
The power measured by the satellite is low (23.5 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 2026-11-05matches 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 only17days
12 Feb 2016 to 28 Feb 2016: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 28 Feb 2016, 18:51 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 only12 Feb 2016
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 12 Feb 2016
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only256
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 23 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 12 Feb 2016 – 28 Feb 2016
+− 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 only524MW
Total radiative power on 21 February 2016; hotspots that day: 73.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 21 Feb 2016
+− 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
model70.1FWI · very extreme
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 31.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 12 Feb 2016, 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
model34.4°C · 36% RH
High of 34.4 °C and minimum humidity of 36% on 22 February 2016; gusts of 70 km/h on 27 February 2016.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 12 Feb 2016 – 28 Feb 2016
- 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≈ 550people
Estimated residents inside the perimeter and 5.1 ha of built-up area (100 m grid, epoch 2015).
- 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 weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logArea: 4,354 → 4,192 ha.
-
logLast day with fire: 26 February 2016 → 28 February 2016.
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
Area logged each night
Move the slider to see which area the page published each day.
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/santa-cruz-2016-02?v=2026-11-05A 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 santa-cruz-2016-02.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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-02-12 | 1 | 6 | 32.2 | 23.6 | 45 | 35.6 | 65.9 | 0 | 70.1 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2016-02-13 | 3 | 4 | 31.9 | 24.4 | 43 | 34.7 | 67.3 | 0 | 69.7 | extremo | 1 |
| 2016-02-14 | 10 | 75 | 32.4 | 24.7 | 41 | 31.4 | 60.5 | 0 | 64.4 | extremo | 1 |
| 2016-02-15 | 0 | 0 | 34 | 24.4 | 38 | 21.7 | 47.9 | 0 | 42 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2016-02-16 | 8 | 28 | 34 | 23.5 | 40 | 22.4 | 43.6 | 0 | 47.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2016-02-17 | 2 | 6 | 33.8 | 23.2 | 44 | 25.6 | 50.8 | 0 | 49.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2016-02-18 | 5 | 14 | 32.4 | 25.4 | 46 | 35.5 | 67 | 0 | 73 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2016-02-19 | 12 | 54 | 32.4 | 25.3 | 41 | 34.7 | 67.3 | 0 | 75.4 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2016-02-20 | 47 | 240 | 32.7 | 25.3 | 44 | 32.4 | 63.7 | 0 | 69.7 | extremo | 1 |
| 2016-02-21 | 73 | 524 | 33.1 | 24.7 | 45 | 29.2 | 55.4 | 0 | 64.9 | extremo | 1 |
| 2016-02-22 | 42 | 269 | 34.4 | 24.2 | 36 | 19.5 | 40 | 0 | 39.4 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2016-02-23 | 29 | 81 | 33.3 | 23.3 | 44 | 17.8 | 36 | 0 | 30 | alto | 1 |
| 2016-02-24 | 12 | 26 | 32.3 | 21.6 | 43 | 18.4 | 38.2 | 0 | 35.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2016-02-25 | 5 | 18 | 33.7 | 25 | 36 | 31.3 | 59.8 | 0 | 68 | extremo | 1 |
| 2016-02-26 | 1 | 6 | 32.3 | 24.5 | 44 | 33.9 | 63.7 | 0 | 74.8 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2016-02-27 | 4 | 22 | 32.4 | 23.8 | 42 | 34.7 | 69.5 | 0 | 75.3 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2016-02-28 | 2 | 7 | 30.4 | 24.2 | 48 | 33.9 | 67.3 | 0 | 70.4 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2016-02-29 | 0 | 0 | 33.2 | 22.3 | 44 | 24.8 | 48.2 | 0 | 45.9 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2016-03-01 | 0 | 0 | 33.2 | 22.8 | 38 | 20.1 | 43.2 | 0 | 35.5 | alto | 0 |
| 2016-03-02 | 0 | 0 | 33.3 | 24.5 | 39 | 24.5 | 44.6 | 0 | 42.1 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2016-03-03 | 0 | 0 | 34.2 | 23.9 | 34 | 25.7 | 49.3 | 0 | 53.5 | extremo | 0 |
| 2016-03-04 | 0 | 0 | 34 | 24.4 | 42 | 19.3 | 42.8 | 0 | 36.7 | alto | 0 |
| 2016-03-05 | 0 | 0 | 34.5 | 24.7 | 38 | 16.9 | 39.2 | 0 | 34.8 | alto | 0 |
| 2016-03-06 | 0 | 0 | 34.9 | 24.1 | 34 | 15.5 | 34.9 | 2.2 | 34.9 | alto | 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
- 4,192ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 17days
- 12 Feb 2016 – 28 Feb 2016
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- cantons
- Started on
- 12 Feb
- 2016
- Heat detections
- 256
- in a single hotspot: 23 MW
- Danger at start
- 70
- Very extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 86MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
12 Feb28 Feb
28 Feb 2016
How it evolved, day by day
12 Feb
17 Feb
21 Feb
25 Feb
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
34°high
70km/h · peak gust
36%lowest humidity
It had gone 31 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.2 mm on 6 Mar.
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
-
Santa Cruz where it started4,381 ha reached on 12 Feb3.3 %
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 2015Built-up area5.1 ha
Residents≈ 550
Inside the perimeter there were about 5.1 hectares of built-up land and about 550 residents (GHSL 2015, 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
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Feb | 32.2 °C | 45 % | 66 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 70 |
| 13 Feb | 31.9 °C | 43 % | 67 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 70 |
| 14 Feb | 32.4 °C | 41 % | 60 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 15 Feb | 34.0 °C | 38 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 16 Feb | 34.0 °C | 40 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 17 Feb | 33.8 °C | 44 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 18 Feb | 32.4 °C | 46 % | 67 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 73 |
| 19 Feb | 32.4 °C | 41 % | 67 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 75 |
| 20 Feb | 32.7 °C | 44 % | 64 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 70 |
| 21 Feb | 33.1 °C | 45 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 22 Feb | 34.4 °C | 36 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 23 Feb | 33.3 °C | 44 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 24 Feb | 32.3 °C | 43 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 25 Feb | 33.7 °C | 36 % | 60 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 26 Feb | 32.3 °C | 44 % | 64 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 75 |
| 27 Feb | 32.4 °C | 42 % | 70 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 75 |
| 28 Feb | 30.4 °C | 48 % | 67 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 70 |
| 29 Feb after | 33.2 °C | 44 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 1 Mar after | 33.2 °C | 38 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 2 Mar after | 33.3 °C | 39 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 3 Mar after | 34.2 °C | 34 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 4 Mar after | 34.0 °C | 42 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 5 Mar after | 34.5 °C | 38 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 6 Mar after | 34.9 °C | 34 % | 35 km/h | 2.2 mm | High 35 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 70.1, a minimum humidity of 45% and 31 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 9.
FWI at the start
70.1
Minimum humidity
45 %
Days without rain
31
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Santa Cruz fire, 12 February 2016
4,192 ha
17 days
FWI 70.1
Min. humidity 45 %
Santa Cruz fire, March 2020
1,300 ha
22 days
FWI 68.5
Min. humidity 42 %
9 km away, in 2020
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Nicoya fire, March 2020
1,534 ha
9 days
FWI 61.2
Min. humidity 46 %
44 km away, in 2020
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Carrillo fire, February 2024
2,754 ha
27 days
FWI 66.7
Min. humidity 48 %
25 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.4 mm on 25 Mar.
Carrillo fire, March 2024
2,066 ha
10 days
FWI 62.2
Min. humidity 41 %
28 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.1 mm on 21 Mar.
Santa Cruz fire, February 2023
1,491 ha
3 days
FWI 66.3
Min. humidity 46 %
24 km away, in 2023
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: 9. 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
6 Mar7 days after it ended
70km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 28 Feb, and on 6 Mar 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 · 5 Feb 2016
After · 6 Mar 2016
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 · 256Every 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
- 3,884 haSanta Cruz16 February 2022 · 15 days · 4 km away
- 5,578 haSanta Cruz5 March 2019 · 24 days · 11 km away
- 15,034 haCarrilloJanuary 2026 · 56 days · 25 km away
- 4,618 haCarrilloMarch 2017 · 22 days · 25 km away
- 11,946 haCarrillo6 February 2022 · 29 days · 27 km away
- 6,612 haCarrillo19 March 2019 · 21 days · 28 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Santa Cruz fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 12 February 2016 to 28 February 2016 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 12 February 2016 to 26 February 2016.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,192 hectares (41.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Santa Cruz (4,381 ha, 3.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.4 °C, humidity dropped to 36 % and gusts hit 70 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 75, class Very extreme.
- 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Area: 4,354 → 4,192 ha.
- Last day with fire: 26 February 2016 → 28 February 2016.
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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 12 February 2016 to 26 February 2016. 256 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 2015, 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.