Babai fire, March 2021 Rapti Sonari, Babai, Kalimati
The fire started on 20 March 2021 in Babai, Nepal, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 19,256 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.
It is the 5th largest in Lumbini since 2016 (of 47 with a page). The largest in Nepal in 2021, of 39.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 19,256ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 26days
- 20 Mar 2021 – 14 Apr 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 4
- municipalities
- Started on
- 20 Mar
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 1,147
- in a single hotspot: 61 MW
- Danger at start
- 17
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 146MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 22 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.0 mm on 22 Apr.
This area had burned before
99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 17,431 ha in 2016, 13,392 ha in 2017, 2,447 ha in 2018, 17,611 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 19,133 ha that had burned before.
- 16,280 ha Rapti Sonari fire, March 2016 43,780 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 13,264 ha Rapti Sonari fire, April 2017 36,223 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 11,916 ha Rapti Sonari fire, April 2019 26,744 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,233 ha Rapti Sonari fire, April 2019 3,535 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 897 ha Rapti Sonari fire, May 2019 2,234 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 570 ha Dangisharan fire, April 2019 2,799 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
17,250 ha17 %
-
Babai where it started1,133 ha5.6 %
-
589 ha1.2 %
-
362 ha3.3 %
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 2020Inside the perimeter there were about 0.20 hectares of built-up land and about 40 residents (GHSL 2020, 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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 Mar | 25.0 °C | 48 % | 35 km/h | 0.5 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 14 Mar | 28.5 °C | 34 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 15 Mar | 28.5 °C | 37 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 16 Mar | 29.8 °C | 31 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 17 Mar | 30.0 °C | 33 % | 40 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 24 |
| 18 Mar | 30.4 °C | 23 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 19 Mar | 31.1 °C | 24 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 20 Mar | 29.8 °C | 27 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 21 Mar | 31.2 °C | 24 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 22 Mar | 32.6 °C | 27 % | 42 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 31 |
| 23 Mar | 33.1 °C | 23 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 24 Mar | 29.6 °C | 25 % | 40 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 33 |
| 25 Mar | 30.2 °C | 21 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 26 Mar | 31.0 °C | 25 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 27 Mar | 30.5 °C | 32 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 28 Mar | 30.6 °C | 32 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 29 Mar | 31.9 °C | 32 % | 41 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 32 |
| 30 Mar | 33.4 °C | 27 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 31 Mar | 30.2 °C | 38 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 1 Apr | 28.9 °C | 20 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 2 Apr | 30.7 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 3 Apr | 30.9 °C | 13 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 4 Apr | 31.4 °C | 19 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 5 Apr | 31.6 °C | 21 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 6 Apr | 32.8 °C | 26 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 7 Apr | 33.8 °C | 29 % | 38 km/h | 0.9 mm | High 29 |
| 8 Apr | 32.7 °C | 25 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 9 Apr | 33.1 °C | 20 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 10 Apr | 33.4 °C | 17 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 11 Apr | 33.7 °C | 17 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 12 Apr | 34.2 °C | 17 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 13 Apr | 34.4 °C | 19 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 14 Apr | 36.1 °C | 16 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 15 Apr after | 34.6 °C | 23 % | 44 km/h | 1.7 mm | High 32 |
| 16 Apr after | 34.4 °C | 21 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 17 Apr after | 32.8 °C | 24 % | 42 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 40 |
| 18 Apr after | 32.8 °C | 22 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 19 Apr after | 33.2 °C | 21 % | 62 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 20 Apr after | 35.5 °C | 15 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 21 Apr after | 28.9 °C | 36 % | 37 km/h | 0.7 mm | High 27 |
| 22 Apr after | 28.9 °C | 35 % | 37 km/h | 2.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
Detections table · 1,147Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 36,223 haRapti SonariApril 2017 · 15 days · 4 km away
- 43,780 haRapti SonariMarch 2016 · 26 days · 5 km away
- 17,411 haKalimatiApril 2026 · 19 days · 7 km away
- 26,744 haRapti Sonari17 April 2019 · 20 days · 15 km away
- 26,185 haRapti SonariApril 2022 · 17 days · 17 km away
- 17,821 haBardiya National ParkMarch 2021 · 14 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Babai fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 March 2021 and 14 April 2021: 26 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 19,256 hectares (192.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 4 municipalities: Rapti Sonari (17,250 ha, 17 %); Babai (1,133 ha, 5.6 %); Kalimati (589 ha, 1.2 %); Dangisharan (362 ha, 3.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.1 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, class Very high.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Nepal (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: 101 · 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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 4 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 1,147 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 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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 (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License). 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.