Babai fire, March 2026 Babai, Budni, Hoshangabad
The fire started on 31 March 2026 in Babai, India, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,807 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.
It is the 20th largest in Madhya Pradesh since 2016 (of 60 with a page). Number 14 in India in 2026, of 65.
- Burnt area
- 12,807ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 8days
- 31 Mar 2026 – 7 Apr 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 4
- subdistricts
- Started on
- 31 Mar
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 443
- in a single hotspot: 33 MW
- Danger at start
- 46
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 3.4GW
- sum of detected power
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 57 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,247 ha in 2016, 3,925 ha in 2017, 3,985 ha in 2018, 7,101 ha in 2019, 8,153 ha in 2020, 10,632 ha in 2021, 7,431 ha in 2022, 6,865 ha in 2023, 5,649 ha in 2024, 9,557 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 12,468 ha that had burned before.
- 5,651 ha Babai fire, November 2025 10,153 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,440 ha Babai fire, April 2020 59,047 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,557 ha Babai fire, April 2019 7,152 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,424 ha Babai fire, April 2023 6,770 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,175 ha Babai fire, April 2021 21,633 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Babai where it started12,616 ha reached on 27 Mar20 %
-
204 ha reached on 1 Apr0.4 %
-
50 ha reached on 2 Apr0.2 %
-
2 ha reached on 4 Apr0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 Mar | 37.9 °C | 22 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 28 Mar | 36.5 °C | 27 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 29 Mar | 36.7 °C | 33 % | 32 km/h | 1.0 mm | High 30 |
| 30 Mar | 37.5 °C | 28 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 31 Mar | 36.7 °C | 32 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 1 Apr | 37.4 °C | 28 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 2 Apr | 36.3 °C | 35 % | 30 km/h | 1.0 mm | High 30 |
| 3 Apr | 35.9 °C | 33 % | 33 km/h | 0.7 mm | High 35 |
| 4 Apr | 35.2 °C | 33 % | 30 km/h | 1.0 mm | High 28 |
| 5 Apr | 34.3 °C | 26 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 6 Apr | 35.2 °C | 23 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 7 Apr | 34.9 °C | 27 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 8 Apr after | 33.2 °C | 38 % | 45 km/h | 0.5 mm | Very high 40 |
| 9 Apr after | 34.7 °C | 30 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 10 Apr after | 35.4 °C | 23 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 11 Apr after | 37.1 °C | 19 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 12 Apr after | 39.1 °C | 21 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 13 Apr after | 38.5 °C | 21 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 14 Apr after | 40.1 °C | 20 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 15 Apr after | 39.8 °C | 19 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 16 Apr after | 41.2 °C | 21 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 17 Apr after | 41.4 °C | 21 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 18 Apr after | 40.1 °C | 23 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 19 Apr after | 41.5 °C | 20 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 20 Apr after | 39.5 °C | 22 % | 36 km/h | 0.7 mm | Very high 48 |
| 21 Apr after | 40.0 °C | 23 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 22 Apr after | 40.8 °C | 18 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 4 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 47 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 32: 2.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 443Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Babai fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 31 March 2026 and 7 April 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 12,807 hectares (128.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 4 municipalities: Babai (12,616 ha, 20 %); Budni (204 ha, 0.4 %); Hoshangabad (50 ha, 0.2 %); Badi (2 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.1 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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
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.