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Atlur fire, April 2026 Atlur, Badvel, Khajipet

Out · last detection 27 Apr 2026, 07:28 UTC

The fire started on 14 April 2026 in Atlur, India, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,072 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the 5th largest in Andhra Pradesh since 2016 (of 30 with a page). Number 11 in India in 2026, of 58.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Gopavaram · 2026Ramapuram · 2026

Burnt area
13,072ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
14 Apr 2026 – 27 Apr 2026
Municipalities hit
4
subdistricts
Started on
14 Apr
2026
Heat detections
414
in a single hotspot: 68 MW
Danger at start
53
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
149MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Apr27 Apr
27 Apr 2026

How it evolved, day by day

14 Apr 2026 · 97 MW · 18 15 Apr 2026 · 154 MW · 34 16 Apr 2026 · 122 MW · 27 17 Apr 2026 · 126 MW · 22 18 Apr 2026 · 239 MW · 41 19 Apr 2026 · 355 MW · 57 20 Apr 2026 · 153 MW · 49 21 Apr 2026 · 80 MW · 25 22 Apr 2026 · 183 MW · 20 23 Apr 2026 · 216 MW · 45 24 Apr 2026 · 79 MW · 17 25 Apr 2026 · 194 MW · 24 26 Apr 2026 · 83 MW · 34 27 Apr 2026 · 5 MW · 1
14 Apr 16 Apr 18 Apr 19 Apr 20 Apr 22 Apr 24 Apr 26 Apr

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
40km/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

97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,832 ha in 2016, 2,814 ha in 2017, 2,262 ha in 2018, 3,324 ha in 2019, 663 ha in 2020, 7,275 ha in 2021, 5,397 ha in 2022, 6,681 ha in 2023, 4,059 ha in 2024, 2 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 12,676 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 8.3% of the area of London (131 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Atlur where it started
    10,250 ha
    24 %
  2. Badvel
    2,150 ha
    8.2 %
  3. Khajipet
    525 ha
    2.3 %
  4. Chennur
    222 ha
    2.1 %

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 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
8 Apr 38.3 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
9 Apr 37.7 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
10 Apr 38.2 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 46
11 Apr 38.7 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Apr 38.5 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Apr 39.5 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Apr 39.6 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
15 Apr 39.7 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Apr 39.8 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
17 Apr 39.9 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
18 Apr 39.2 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Apr 40.3 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Apr 39.4 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
21 Apr 39.8 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
22 Apr 39.4 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
23 Apr 39.6 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
24 Apr 39.4 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
25 Apr 39.5 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
26 Apr 40.6 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
27 Apr 39.7 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
28 Apr after 39.7 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
29 Apr after 39.4 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 44
30 Apr after 39.2 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 47
1 May after 40.5 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
2 May after 39.6 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
3 May after 39.6 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
4 May after 39.4 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.3 mm Extreme 51
5 May after 39.2 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.3 mm Extreme 56
6 May after 37.0 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 44
7 May after 36.4 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Apr 2026
After · 4 May 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 28 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 66 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 43: 2.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak66 µg/m³
Days over the guideline24 days
PM1077 µg/m³
Optical depth1.23
6789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930
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 · 414Every 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

Other fires nearby

All fires in India ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Atlur fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 April 2026 and 27 April 2026: 14 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 13,072 hectares (130.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Atlur (10,250 ha, 24 %); Badvel (2,150 ha, 8.2 %); Khajipet (525 ha, 2.3 %); Chennur (222 ha, 2.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.6 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 414 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 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.