How long did the Cherla fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 March 2026 and 8 March 2026: 6 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 5,200 hectares (52.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cherla (4,017 ha, 8.1 %); Usur (1,211 ha, 0.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.0 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 35 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 India (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

IN · India · 2026-03-03 → 2026-03-08

Cherla fire, March 2026 Cherla, Usur

Out · last detection 9 Mar 2026, 07:46 UTC

The fire started on 3 March 2026 in Cherla, India, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,200 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 16th largest in Telangāna since 2016 (of 16 with a page). Number 62 in India in 2026, of 65.

Burnt area: 5,200ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 6days; 3 Mar 2026 – 8 Mar 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; subdistricts
Started on: 3 Mar; 2026
Heat detections: 109; in a single hotspot: 39 MW
Danger at start: 13; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 781MW; sum of detected power

Play back 9 Mar 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Mar8 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

3456789

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

35km/h · peak gust

17%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 16 Mar.

This area had burned before

92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,852 ha in 2016, 2,076 ha in 2017, 1,688 ha in 2019, 1,264 ha in 2020, 2,620 ha in 2021, 2,480 ha in 2022, 1,363 ha in 2023, 59 ha in 2024, 2,744 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,761 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Cherla where it started

4,017 ha reached on 3 Mar

8.1 %
Usur

1,211 ha reached on 3 Mar

0.5 %

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)
25 Feb	32.7 °C	41 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
26 Feb	33.0 °C	35 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
27 Feb	33.2 °C	33 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
28 Feb	33.7 °C	34 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
1 Mar	33.9 °C	33 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
2 Mar	33.7 °C	34 %	17 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
3 Mar	35.4 °C	25 %	15 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
4 Mar	34.9 °C	30 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
5 Mar	36.5 °C	21 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
6 Mar	38.0 °C	17 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
7 Mar	36.3 °C	24 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
8 Mar	34.5 °C	35 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
9 Mar after	34.0 °C	39 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
10 Mar after	33.6 °C	38 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
11 Mar after	35.7 °C	27 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
12 Mar after	36.8 °C	23 %	14 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
13 Mar after	36.5 °C	27 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
14 Mar after	36.0 °C	30 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
15 Mar after	35.0 °C	34 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
16 Mar after	32.3 °C	40 %	31 km/h	1.1 mm	High 22

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 24 Feb 2026

After · 15 Mar 2026

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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 5 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 62 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 51: 3.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak62 µg/m³

Days over the guideline11 days

PM1072 µg/m³

Optical depth1.15

WHO 15

1234567891011

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 · 109Every 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 Cherla fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 March 2026 and 8 March 2026: 6 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 5,200 hectares (52.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cherla (4,017 ha, 8.1 %); Usur (1,211 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.0 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 35 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 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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Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

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