How long did the Chaukune fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 April 2016 and 19 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 2,207 hectares (22.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Chaukune (2,186 ha, 5.7 %); Mohanyal (28 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, class Very 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 · 2016-04-08 → 2016-04-19

Chaukune fire, 8 April 2016 Chaukune, Mohanyal

Out · last detection 20 Apr 2016, 07:31 UTC

The fire started on 8 April 2016 in Chaukune, Nepal, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,207 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 32th largest in Karnali since 2016 (of 42 with a page). Number 42 in Nepal in 2016, of 47.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Chaukune · 2021 Bardiya National Park · 2019 Bardiya National Park · 2021 Bardiya National Park · 2016

Burnt area: 2,207ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 12days; 8 Apr 2016 – 19 Apr 2016
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 8 Apr; 2016
Heat detections: 108; in a single hotspot: 46 MW
Danger at start: 33; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 41MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Apr19 Apr

Play back 20 Apr 2016

How it evolved, day by day

8 Apr 10 Apr 12 Apr 14 Apr 15 Apr 16 Apr 20 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

38°high

43km/h · peak gust

18%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 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.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 1.4% of the area of London (22 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

Chaukune where it started

2,186 ha

5.7 %
Mohanyal

28 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)
8 Apr	34.7 °C	18 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
9 Apr	35.5 °C	20 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
10 Apr	36.8 °C	21 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
11 Apr	36.5 °C	21 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
12 Apr	33.2 °C	29 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
13 Apr	33.8 °C	31 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
14 Apr	34.6 °C	25 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
15 Apr	36.0 °C	22 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
16 Apr	35.1 °C	30 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
17 Apr	36.2 °C	30 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
18 Apr	33.5 °C	38 %	36 km/h	2.6 mm	Low 11
19 Apr	35.5 °C	30 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
20 Apr after	37.7 °C	24 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
21 Apr after	36.2 °C	29 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
22 Apr after	37.1 °C	19 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
23 Apr after	35.9 °C	19 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
24 Apr after	34.7 °C	18 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
25 Apr after	35.6 °C	17 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
26 Apr after	36.4 °C	19 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
27 Apr after	37.1 °C	16 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
28 Apr after	37.1 °C	20 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
29 Apr after	37.4 °C	20 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
30 Apr after	36.2 °C	15 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
1 May after	36.8 °C	21 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
2 May after	36.4 °C	29 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 1 Apr 2016

After · 26 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 · 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Nepal ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Chaukune fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 April 2016 and 19 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 2,207 hectares (22.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Chaukune (2,186 ha, 5.7 %); Mohanyal (28 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, class Very 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

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.

Report an error

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 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.

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