How long did the Bhinga fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 April 2016 and 16 April 2016: 12 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 12,314 hectares (123.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Bhinga (1,464 ha, 1.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, class Extreme.

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.

IN · India · 2016-04-05 → 2016-04-16

Bhinga fire, April 2016 Bhinga

Out · last detection 15 Apr 2016, 07:24 UTC

The fire started on 5 April 2016 in Bhinga, India, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,314 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

We are reviewing this page: some of its data look inconsistent (the place, the dates or the area), so treat them with caution.

The power measured by the satellite is low (9.6 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: 12,314ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 12days; 5 Apr 2016 – 16 Apr 2016
Municipalities hit: 1; subdistricts
Started on: 5 Apr; 2016
Heat detections: 43; in a single hotspot: 10 MW
Danger at start: 38; High · FWI index
Energy released: 136MW; sum of detected power

Play back 15 Apr 2016

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Apr16 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

89101112131415

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

The weather it burned in

38°high

64km/h · peak gust

14%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

Bhinga where it started

1,464 ha reached on 8 Apr

1.5 %

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	36.3 °C	24 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
6 Apr	35.5 °C	19 %	63 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
7 Apr	34.4 °C	22 %	51 km/h	0.5 mm	Very high 43
8 Apr	35.0 °C	18 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
9 Apr	35.8 °C	16 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
10 Apr	37.0 °C	14 %	57 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
11 Apr	37.0 °C	17 %	62 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
12 Apr	33.0 °C	24 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
13 Apr	33.9 °C	23 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
14 Apr	35.2 °C	18 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
15 Apr	36.4 °C	20 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
16 Apr	35.1 °C	25 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
17 Apr after	34.3 °C	38 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
18 Apr after	33.0 °C	33 %	40 km/h	1.8 mm	Moderate 19
19 Apr after	36.4 °C	23 %	59 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
20 Apr after	38.3 °C	18 %	64 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
21 Apr after	36.5 °C	21 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
22 Apr after	37.0 °C	17 %	59 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
23 Apr after	36.4 °C	16 %	58 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
24 Apr after	35.0 °C	12 %	65 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
25 Apr after	35.9 °C	13 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
26 Apr after	36.9 °C	12 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
27 Apr after	37.2 °C	15 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
28 Apr after	37.5 °C	14 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
29 Apr after	37.8 °C	13 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
30 Apr after	36.4 °C	14 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
1 May after	37.0 °C	17 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
2 May after	34.3 °C	34 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 29 Mar 2016

After · 23 Apr 2016

Before After

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 · 43Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in India ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Bhinga fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 April 2016 and 16 April 2016: 12 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 12,314 hectares (123.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Bhinga (1,464 ha, 1.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, class Extreme.
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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned