How long did the Aheri fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 March 2025 and 8 March 2025: 8 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 6,507 hectares (65.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Aheri (6,537 ha, 2.8 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 40.6 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, class Extreme.

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.

IN · India · 2025-03-01 → 2025-03-08

Aheri fire, March 2025 Aheri

Out · last detection 9 Mar 2025, 08:24 UTC

The fire started on 1 March 2025 in Aheri, India, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,507 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 7th largest in Mahārāshtra since 2016 (of 17 with a page). Number 24 in India in 2025, of 33.

Burnt area: 6,507ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 8days; 1 Mar 2025 – 8 Mar 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; subdistricts
Started on: 1 Mar; 2025
Heat detections: 293; in a single hotspot: 43 MW
Danger at start: 40; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 1.4GW; sum of detected power

Play back 9 Mar 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Mar8 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

123456789

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

41°high

42km/h · peak gust

10%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.0 mm on 22 Mar.

This area had burned before

97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,501 ha in 2016, 3,436 ha in 2017, 1,630 ha in 2018, 2,925 ha in 2019, 2,944 ha in 2020, 3,408 ha in 2021, 4,425 ha in 2022, 1,134 ha in 2023, 2,884 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,310 ha that had burned before.

4,282 ha Aheri fire, March 2022 11,912 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Aheri where it started

6,537 ha reached on 24 Feb

2.8 %

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)
24 Feb	36.4 °C	19 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
25 Feb	34.0 °C	32 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
26 Feb	35.8 °C	25 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
27 Feb	35.2 °C	28 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
28 Feb	35.9 °C	32 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
1 Mar	36.0 °C	27 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
2 Mar	37.1 °C	27 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
3 Mar	38.3 °C	21 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
4 Mar	39.3 °C	18 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
5 Mar	35.6 °C	17 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
6 Mar	35.0 °C	12 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
7 Mar	36.8 °C	10 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
8 Mar	37.4 °C	17 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
9 Mar after	37.0 °C	26 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
10 Mar after	36.7 °C	29 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
11 Mar after	37.7 °C	25 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
12 Mar after	39.3 °C	19 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
13 Mar after	40.1 °C	23 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
14 Mar after	40.6 °C	25 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
15 Mar after	40.4 °C	21 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
16 Mar after	41.0 °C	19 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
17 Mar after	40.7 °C	19 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
18 Mar after	40.7 °C	20 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
19 Mar after	39.3 °C	27 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
20 Mar after	37.0 °C	36 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
21 Mar after	36.3 °C	37 %	39 km/h	0.7 mm	High 32
22 Mar after	36.8 °C	39 %	30 km/h	3.0 mm	Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 22 Feb 2025

After · 15 Mar 2025

Before After

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 8 March 2025 the air beside the fire reached 109 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 66: 4.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak109 µg/m³

Days over the guideline13 days

PM10111 µg/m³

Optical depth0.93

WHO 15

27281234567891011

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 · 293Every 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

All fires in India ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Aheri fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 March 2025 and 8 March 2025: 8 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 6,507 hectares (65.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Aheri (6,537 ha, 2.8 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 40.6 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, class Extreme.
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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned