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Anandapur fire, February 2026 Mahuldiha, Anandapur, Ghasipura

Out · last detection 5 Mar 2026, 07:22 UTC

The fire started on 27 February 2026 in Anandapur, India, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,706 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 8th largest in Odisha since 2016 (of 16 with a page). Number 37 in India in 2026, of 65.

The power measured by the satellite is low (10.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
6,706ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
27 Feb 2026 – 6 Mar 2026
Municipalities hit
3
subdistricts
Started on
27 Feb
2026
Heat detections
161
in a single hotspot: 11 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Energy released
550MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Mar 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Feb6 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

27282345

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
31km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

47% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 848 ha in 2018, 2,008 ha in 2021, 558 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,144 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mahuldiha
    3,765 ha reached on 26 Feb
    10 %
  2. Anandapur where it started
    2,719 ha reached on 27 Feb
    7.1 %
  3. Ghasipura
    253 ha reached on 3 Mar
    0.6 %

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)
20 Feb 32.7 °C 28 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
21 Feb 32.6 °C 32 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
22 Feb 33.6 °C 28 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
23 Feb 32.9 °C 35 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
24 Feb 30.3 °C 45 % 22 km/h 7.2 mm Very low 3
25 Feb 30.8 °C 41 % 19 km/h 0.4 mm Low 10
26 Feb 31.3 °C 25 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
27 Feb 32.3 °C 27 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
28 Feb 33.6 °C 26 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
1 Mar 33.5 °C 34 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
2 Mar 35.1 °C 25 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
3 Mar 34.7 °C 18 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
4 Mar 34.3 °C 23 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 Mar 33.3 °C 33 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
6 Mar 32.7 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
7 Mar after 31.6 °C 49 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
8 Mar after 32.0 °C 51 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
9 Mar after 32.4 °C 51 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
10 Mar after 31.5 °C 51 % 26 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 21
11 Mar after 32.5 °C 54 % 24 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 20
12 Mar after 34.9 °C 39 % 24 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
13 Mar after 35.0 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
14 Mar after 34.4 °C 43 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
15 Mar after 32.8 °C 52 % 37 km/h 0.6 mm High 24
16 Mar after 33.2 °C 45 % 33 km/h 0.5 mm High 23
17 Mar after 32.1 °C 48 % 39 km/h 0.3 mm High 25
18 Mar after 33.2 °C 43 % 31 km/h 0.3 mm High 24
19 Mar after 33.8 °C 38 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 25

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Feb 2026
After · 13 Mar 2026

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 1 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 79 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 68: 4.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak79 µg/m³
Days over the guideline13 days
PM10119 µg/m³
Optical depth2.16
25262728123456789
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 · 161Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Anandapur fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 February 2026 and 6 March 2026: 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 6,706 hectares (67.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Mahuldiha (3,765 ha, 10 %); Anandapur (2,719 ha, 7.1 %); Ghasipura (253 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.1 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, class 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
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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.