Skip to content
worldfires
IN · India · →

Aheri fire, 12 March 2022 Aheri

Out · last measured on 20 Mar 2022

The fire started on 12 March 2022 in Aheri, India, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,912 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the largest fire in Mahārāshtra since 2016 (of 17 with a page). Number 6 in India in 2022, of 28.

We have the GWIS perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
11,912ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
12 Mar 2022 – 20 Mar 2022
Municipalities hit
1
subdistricts
Started on
12 Mar
2022
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

41°high
37km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 56 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,425 ha in 2016, 6,721 ha in 2017, 1,843 ha in 2018, 4,800 ha in 2019, 3,681 ha in 2020, 5,929 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 11,032 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Aheri where it started
    11,966 ha
    5.1 %

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 Mar 36.9 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Mar 37.5 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
14 Mar 37.8 °C 15 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Mar 39.2 °C 17 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Mar 40.2 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Mar 41.3 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Mar 38.4 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Mar 36.8 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Mar 37.5 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Mar after 39.1 °C 25 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
22 Mar after 39.2 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
23 Mar after 40.8 °C 13 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Mar after 38.1 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Mar after 38.8 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Mar after 38.0 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
27 Mar after 39.5 °C 28 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Mar after 40.5 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Mar after 41.5 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
30 Mar after 41.9 °C 15 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Mar 2022
After · 27 Mar 2022

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Other fires nearby

All fires in India ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Aheri fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 March 2022 and 20 March 2022: 9 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 11,912 hectares (119.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Aheri (11,966 ha, 5.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.3 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of India (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: 112

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 112.

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 ADM3 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). 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.