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Babai fire, April 2023 Babai, Budni

Out · last measured on 7 Apr 2023

The fire started on 1 April 2023 in Babai, India, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,770 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 44th largest in Madhya Pradesh since 2016 (of 60 with a page). Number 13 in India in 2023, of 23.

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
6,770ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
1 Apr 2023 – 7 Apr 2023
Municipalities hit
2
subdistricts
Started on
1 Apr
2023
Danger at start
21
Moderate · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

36°high
31km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,164 ha in 2016, 2,651 ha in 2017, 2,022 ha in 2018, 4,925 ha in 2019, 5,092 ha in 2020, 6,020 ha in 2021, 4,110 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,525 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Babai where it started
    6,779 ha
    11 %
  2. Budni
    25 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)
1 Apr 31.7 °C 37 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
2 Apr 33.8 °C 29 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
3 Apr 35.4 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 Apr 35.2 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
5 Apr 35.8 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Apr 35.5 °C 26 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
7 Apr 36.4 °C 24 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
8 Apr after 33.5 °C 37 % 26 km/h 0.3 mm High 33
9 Apr after 35.6 °C 30 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
10 Apr after 36.1 °C 30 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
11 Apr after 37.9 °C 25 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
12 Apr after 39.4 °C 22 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Apr after 39.0 °C 24 % 20 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 38
14 Apr after 38.3 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Apr after 35.0 °C 33 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Apr after 38.4 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Apr after 39.8 °C 20 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Mar 2023
After · 14 Apr 2023

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 4 April 2023 the air beside the fire reached 60 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 36: 2.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak60 µg/m³
Days over the guideline12 days
PM1091 µg/m³
Optical depth0.74
303112345678910
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in India ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Babai fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 April 2023 and 7 April 2023: 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 6,770 hectares (67.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Babai (6,779 ha, 11 %); Budni (25 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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
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.