All of Guanacaste is prone to fire. From the Tempisque Conservation Area to the edges of Santa Rosa National Park, across the grasslands of Liberia and Santa Cruz. So far in 2026, the Fire Department has reported a historic record of more than 140 wildfires in the province.
Beyond the suffocating temperatures and the risk of standing before the flames, firefighters face something even more frustrating: while they battle one blaze, someone else is starting another.
They no longer want to be the news story that paints them as national heroes protecting nature; they want people to stop burning grasslands and forests, says wildland firefighter Laura Pérez Bertozzi in a call with La Voz.
Guanacaste is burning because of several factors contributing to this “perfect storm,” though the most dangerous one is human activity, Pérez Bertozzi adds.
Tradition, Negligence, and Vandalism
The majority of wildfires in Guanacaste do not occur naturally. According to data from the National System of Conservation Areas (Sinac), 98% of wildfires are caused by humans. Illegal agricultural burns are among the primary causes. In many of the province’s farming and ranching communities, the tradition of burning land to clear brush persists.
Without the necessary permits and safety measures for a controlled burn—such as having safety tools on hand or creating firebreaks (rondas)—the fire can spiral out of control and spread to nearby forests or neighboring farms.
It is common practice for some people to even “take advantage” of the early-year winds (January and February), which coincide with the dry season, to carry out these burns, explains fire ecologist Gabriela Jones Román. The wind acts as an accelerator, turning any small spark into a massive inferno.
When it’s very windy, some people like to burn because they probably feel the wind will speed up the process and they’ll clear the property quickly. They don’t realize that if they aren’t vigilant, the fire spreads and escapes them, causing damage,” explains Jones Román, who is also a researcher at the State Distance University (UNED).
Terrain conditions and access routes pose another challenge for firefighting due to the extremely complex topography. Wildland fire crews face steep hills covered in thick vegetation and thorns, where they often have to clear a path with machetes for hours just to reach the fire line.
Getting to the fire can be complicated, and it’s not so much about the distance, but the terrain that limits you. Reaching the fire even by vehicle is difficult. We go out there and realize, no, it’s another mountain, it’s a valley further in. Sometimes a great deal of time and energy is spent just to reach the site,” explains Laura Pérez Bertozzi, a wildland firefighter from Nosara.
Reaching these locations while carrying heavy tools and equipment for hours, exposed to high temperatures—all on a voluntary basis—is a Herculean task. But for Pérez, the most important thing isn’t for people to step into their shoes or grasp the scale of their work, but to avoid starting the fires they fight at all costs.
“What matters to me is that people understand why we shouldn’t start wildfires. It’s not about saying, ‘Oh, poor firefighters, they must be so tired,’ right? In the end, what matters is that people understand we cannot continue as we are right now in Guanacaste: burning the forest and the soil,” she says.
Some fires, like those reported in the Guanacaste Conservation Area (ACG), are deliberately set by illegal hunters or as acts of revenge following seizures of illegally logged timber, says Gabriela Jones Román. The fires that sweep through the ACG each year are incredibly difficult to control, not only because of the 104,000 hectares the area covers but also due to the conditions of the dry forest ecosystem.
Ecosystem, Climate, and Terrain
The tropical dry forest protected by the ACG has a key to surviving the dry season, though paradoxically, it is the same trait that makes it vulnerable to fire. The trees are deciduous, meaning they drop their leaves during the dry season as an adaptation to survive months of high water stress. When those leaves fall, they create a massive amount of fuel on the ground; therefore, any flame spreads with ease.
The speed of the fire is also influenced by the different plant species within the ecosystem. In a young forest, there are deciduous species but also grasslands.
Furthermore, there are grasses (gramíneas)—the plant family of sugarcane, rice, and corn—used in regional agriculture. Fire spreads very quickly through them because they tend to be oily.
While there is no conclusive proof yet, it is highly likely that another factor worsening the province’s fires is the influence of climate change on weather events like El Niño and La Niña, which alter rain and drought patterns.
It seems El Niño will be quite strong this season; we might not have enough rain, or we might have very intense rainy seasons. This causes many branches and trees to die and accumulate, creating a huge amount of fuel. Then come very harsh dry periods, and when a wildfire starts, because of that buildup and the weakened trees, the fire tends to be more extreme,” Gabriela explains.
A Foretold Crisis
Putting out fires costs money: vehicle maintenance, fuel, equipment, and personnel wages—and state resources are far from sufficient. According to the 2025 State of the Nation report, between 2020 and 2025, the government reduced Sinac’s budget by 40%. Additionally, the number of hours dedicated to control and protection activities in conservation areas fell by 60% between 2018 and 2024.
Since the government of Rodrigo Chaves announced the cuts to Sinac, the institution warned it would have direct consequences on conservation.
This has resulted in protected areas relying increasingly on volunteer wildland firefighters.
“Volunteers have their own jobs to survive. I hear them in the chats; I know volunteers who say, ‘I can come help on Saturday or Sunday,’ and of course, in the meantime, the fire advances. They have staff assigned to fires, but given the wave of outbreaks, they have a limited number of people,” comments Gabriela Jones Román.
Often, these volunteer fire brigades work with very limited personal resources. According to Laura Pérez Bertozzi, firefighters usually provide their own vehicles and money for food.
The brigade sustains itself there, but communities in other circumstances might find themselves very limited,” explains the Nosara firefighter.
On other occasions, the lack of personnel within these same volunteer brigades means they cannot respond to emergencies with sufficient capacity.
“Many times it’s also a lack of people. We are very few, so we can’t keep up. When exhaustion starts to win, it feels terrible; we want to continue, but we just can’t. We have to withdraw without securing the fireline, and that means the fire can jump,” says Remo Bride, leader of the Nosara Wildland Fire Brigade.
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