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Babai fire, April 2022 Babai, Sohagpur

Out · last measured on 11 Apr 2022

The fire started on 5 April 2022 in Babai, India, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,266 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 57th largest in Madhya Pradesh since 2016 (of 60 with a page). Number 25 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
5,266ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
5 Apr 2022 – 11 Apr 2022
Municipalities hit
2
subdistricts
Started on
5 Apr
2022
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

41°high
24km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,649 ha in 2016, 2,312 ha in 2017, 1,744 ha in 2018, 1,788 ha in 2019, 2,486 ha in 2020, 4,202 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,078 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Babai where it started
    5,258 ha
    8.5 %
  2. Sohagpur
    30 ha
    0.0 %

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)
5 Apr 40.7 °C 15 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Apr 40.7 °C 16 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Apr 40.6 °C 17 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Apr 40.4 °C 18 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Apr 40.9 °C 17 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
10 Apr 40.6 °C 18 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
11 Apr 40.2 °C 19 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Apr after 39.8 °C 22 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Apr after 40.1 °C 17 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Apr after 39.5 °C 19 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
15 Apr after 40.1 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
16 Apr after 39.8 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
17 Apr after 39.9 °C 19 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
18 Apr after 40.4 °C 19 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Apr after 41.2 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
20 Apr after 41.7 °C 18 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
21 Apr after 38.2 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 56

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Mar 2022
After · 18 Apr 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 Babai fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 April 2022 and 11 April 2022: 7 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 5,266 hectares (52.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Babai (5,258 ha, 8.5 %); Sohagpur (30 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.9 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 24 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.