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IN · India · –

Bankhedi fire, November 2025 Bankhedi, Saikheda, Gadarwara

Out · last detection 25 Nov 2025, 08:35 UTC

The fire started on 5 November 2025 in Bankhedi, India, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,100 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

Number 15 in India in 2025, of 16.

GWIS near-real-time perimeter, from the layer that changed in October 2025: this fire is not compared with fires from earlier years, because since then the GWIS layer gives more and larger perimeters.

The power measured by the satellite is low (18.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
6,100ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
21days
5 Nov 2025 – 25 Nov 2025
Municipalities hit
3
subdistricts
Started on
5 Nov
2025
Heat detections
108
in a single hotspot: 18 MW
Danger at start
6
Low · FWI index
Average daily power
27MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Nov25 Nov
25 Nov 2025

How it evolved, day by day

5 Nov 2025 · 3 MW · 1 6 Nov 2025 · 3 MW · 1 9 Nov 2025 · 11 MW · 4 10 Nov 2025 · 6 MW · 1 11 Nov 2025 · 75 MW · 14 12 Nov 2025 · 35 MW · 11 13 Nov 2025 · 25 MW · 8 14 Nov 2025 · 31 MW · 5 15 Nov 2025 · 94 MW · 19 16 Nov 2025 · 68 MW · 15 17 Nov 2025 · 9 MW · 2 18 Nov 2025 · 26 MW · 4 19 Nov 2025 · 15 MW · 4 20 Nov 2025 · 27 MW · 6 21 Nov 2025 · 34 MW · 5 22 Nov 2025 · 14 MW · 5 23 Nov 2025 · 8 MW · 2 25 Nov 2025 · 2 MW · 1
5 Nov 11 Nov 15 Nov 19 Nov 23 Nov

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

31°high
26km/h · peak gust
31%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

87% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 92 ha in 2016, 1,287 ha in 2017, 606 ha in 2018, 1,311 ha in 2019, 2,402 ha in 2020, 2,868 ha in 2021, 3,503 ha in 2022, 1,165 ha in 2023, 1,963 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,312 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.9% of the area of London (61 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. Bankhedi where it started
    5,963 ha reached on 5 Nov
    9.2 %
  2. 124 ha reached on 15 Nov
    0.3 %
  3. 43 ha
    0.0 %

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 area49 ha
Residents≈ 14,000

Inside the perimeter there were about 49 hectares of built-up land and about 14,000 residents (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)
5 Nov 30.6 °C 49 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
6 Nov 30.1 °C 34 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
7 Nov 29.0 °C 43 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
8 Nov 28.1 °C 36 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
9 Nov 27.6 °C 32 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 11
10 Nov 28.3 °C 31 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 11
11 Nov 28.2 °C 35 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
12 Nov 28.2 °C 34 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
13 Nov 28.1 °C 34 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
14 Nov 27.7 °C 35 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
15 Nov 27.3 °C 31 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
16 Nov 26.4 °C 32 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
17 Nov 26.5 °C 36 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
18 Nov 26.6 °C 37 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
19 Nov 26.7 °C 37 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
20 Nov 27.4 °C 39 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
21 Nov 28.1 °C 41 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
22 Nov 28.8 °C 44 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
23 Nov 28.8 °C 43 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
24 Nov 28.9 °C 45 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
25 Nov 28.1 °C 45 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
26 Nov after 27.8 °C 47 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
27 Nov after 27.7 °C 44 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
28 Nov after 26.0 °C 35 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
29 Nov after 25.9 °C 37 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
30 Nov after 26.5 °C 36 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
1 Dec after 26.5 °C 42 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
2 Dec after 26.6 °C 42 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
3 Dec after 26.6 °C 41 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
4 Dec after 26.1 °C 40 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
5 Dec after 25.4 °C 41 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Oct 2025
After · 2 Dec 2025

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 24 November 2025 the air beside the fire reached 111 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 91: 6.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak111 µg/m³
Days over the guideline21 days
PM10114 µg/m³
Optical depth1.52
6 Nov11 Nov16 Nov21 Nov26 Nov
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 · 108Every 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 Bankhedi fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 5 November 2025 to 25 November 2025 (21 days). The perimeter dates it from 8 November 2025 to 23 November 2025.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,100 hectares (61.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Bankhedi (5,963 ha, 9.2 %); Saikheda (124 ha, 0.3 %); Gadarwara (43 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.6 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 26 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 18, class Moderate.
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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 23 November 2025 → 25 November 2025.
  2. Start date: 8 November 2025 → 5 November 2025.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 8 November 2025 to 23 November 2025. 108 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.