How long did the Chaukune fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 March 2021 to 9 April 2021 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 30 March 2021 to 9 April 2021.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,350 hectares (43.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Bogtan (3,600 ha, 12 %); Dhakari (655 ha, 2.9 %); Chaukune (109 ha, 0.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 33.1 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, class High.

Where does this data come from?

From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Nepal (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

NP · Nepal · 2021-03-23 → 2021-04-09

Chaukune fire, March 2021 Bogtan, Dhakari, Chaukune

Out · last detection 9 Apr 2021, 19:22 UTC

The fire started on 23 March 2021 in Chaukune, Nepal, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,350 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 6th largest in Karnali since 2016 (of 42 with a page). Number 7 in Nepal in 2021, of 39.

The power measured by the satellite is low (22.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Bogtan · 2018 Chaukune · 2016 Mohanyal · 2021 Mohanyal · 2021

Burnt area: 4,350ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 18days; 23 Mar 2021 – 9 Apr 2021
Municipalities hit: 3; municipalities
Started on: 23 Mar; 2021
Heat detections: 325; in a single hotspot: 22 MW
Danger at start: 3; Very low · FWI index
Average daily power: 52MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Mar9 Apr

Play back 9 Apr 2021

How it evolved, day by day

23 Mar 26 Mar 29 Mar 31 Mar 1 Apr 4 Apr 7 Apr

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

The weather it burned in

33°high

40km/h · peak gust

22%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 12.0 mm on 17 Apr.

This area had burned before

66% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,463 ha in 2016, 2,035 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,857 ha that had burned before.

1,989 ha Bogtan fire, April 2018 2,073 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 2.7% of the area of London (44 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

Bogtan

3,600 ha reached on 23 Mar

12 %
Dhakari

655 ha reached on 30 Mar

2.9 %
Chaukune where it started

109 ha reached on 24 Mar

0.3 %

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 2020

Built-up area1.2 ha

Residents≈ 500

Inside the perimeter there were about 1.2 hectares of built-up land and about 500 residents (GHSL 2020, 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.

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)
23 Mar	28.7 °C	34 %	33 km/h	1.6 mm	Very low 3
24 Mar	26.4 °C	38 %	30 km/h	2.9 mm	Very low 1
25 Mar	27.2 °C	32 %	34 km/h	0.2 mm	Low 6
26 Mar	29.4 °C	32 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
27 Mar	28.7 °C	37 %	30 km/h	0.5 mm	Low 10
28 Mar	27.7 °C	47 %	24 km/h	6.0 mm	Very low 1
29 Mar	27.1 °C	50 %	28 km/h	8.4 mm	Very low 0
30 Mar	31.0 °C	32 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 4
31 Mar	27.5 °C	43 %	30 km/h	0.6 mm	Low 6
1 Apr	26.7 °C	34 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
2 Apr	27.5 °C	31 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 11
3 Apr	27.6 °C	23 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
4 Apr	29.3 °C	27 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
5 Apr	29.1 °C	29 %	32 km/h	0.5 mm	Moderate 15
6 Apr	30.0 °C	36 %	33 km/h	1.9 mm	Low 6
7 Apr	28.8 °C	41 %	31 km/h	1.2 mm	Low 7
8 Apr	29.9 °C	28 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
9 Apr	30.9 °C	22 %	29 km/h	0.7 mm	Moderate 18
10 Apr after	30.6 °C	23 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
11 Apr after	30.8 °C	22 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
12 Apr after	31.2 °C	25 %	40 km/h	0.4 mm	High 24
13 Apr after	31.9 °C	26 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
14 Apr after	33.1 °C	29 %	35 km/h	1.4 mm	Moderate 16
15 Apr after	31.3 °C	31 %	39 km/h	5.6 mm	Very low 4
16 Apr after	31.0 °C	34 %	33 km/h	5.2 mm	Very low 3
17 Apr after	27.2 °C	47 %	37 km/h	12.0 mm	Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 16 Mar 2021

After · 16 Apr 2021

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 · 325Every 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 Nepal ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Chaukune fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 March 2021 to 9 April 2021 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 30 March 2021 to 9 April 2021.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,350 hectares (43.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Bogtan (3,600 ha, 12 %); Dhakari (655 ha, 2.9 %); Chaukune (109 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 33.1 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, class High.
Where does this data come from?: From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Nepal (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: 101 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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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 101.

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 30 March 2021 to 9 April 2021. 325 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 2020, 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 (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License). 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