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Chintur fire, April 2026 Maredumilli, Chintur, Vararamachandrapuram

Out · last detection 7 May 2026, 08:01 UTC

The fire started on 11 April 2026 in Chintur, India, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,833 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 9th largest in Andhra Pradesh since 2016 (of 30 with a page). Number 18 in India in 2026, of 65.

Burnt area
9,833ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
27days
11 Apr 2026 – 7 May 2026
Municipalities hit
3
subdistricts
Started on
11 Apr
2026
Heat detections
392
in a single hotspot: 34 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 May 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Apr7 May

How it evolved, day by day

11121314151617181920212223242526272829301247

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
44km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.3 mm on 8 May.

This area had burned before

71% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,540 ha in 2016, 1,106 ha in 2017, 3,388 ha in 2019, 113 ha in 2020, 1,701 ha in 2021, 20 ha in 2022, 390 ha in 2023, 655 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,997 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Maredumilli
    4,824 ha reached on 10 Apr
    4.5 %
  2. Chintur where it started
    2,926 ha reached on 8 Apr
    3.2 %
  3. Vararamachandrapuram
    2,138 ha reached on 8 Apr
    3.9 %

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)
7 Apr 35.1 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
8 Apr 34.9 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
9 Apr 34.3 °C 42 % 29 km/h 0.6 mm High 23
10 Apr 35.4 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
11 Apr 36.2 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Apr 36.9 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
13 Apr 35.9 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Apr 36.5 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Apr 36.5 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Apr 36.7 °C 33 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Apr 37.4 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Apr 37.7 °C 34 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
19 Apr 37.3 °C 36 % 30 km/h 1.8 mm High 23
20 Apr 36.1 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
21 Apr 35.8 °C 38 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
22 Apr 37.0 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
23 Apr 36.9 °C 31 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Apr 37.9 °C 27 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
25 Apr 37.1 °C 33 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
26 Apr 37.2 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Apr 36.8 °C 35 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
28 Apr 36.4 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
29 Apr 37.6 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 37
30 Apr 37.4 °C 37 % 42 km/h 0.8 mm High 31
1 May 38.1 °C 31 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
2 May 37.3 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 39
3 May 35.3 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.3 mm High 37
4 May 35.5 °C 41 % 33 km/h 0.6 mm High 30
5 May 36.0 °C 38 % 40 km/h 0.2 mm High 34
6 May 34.6 °C 39 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
7 May 35.4 °C 39 % 26 km/h 3.9 mm Moderate 11
8 May after 34.3 °C 43 % 29 km/h 2.3 mm Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Apr 2026
After · 14 May 2026

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 23 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 78 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 53: 3.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak78 µg/m³
Days over the guideline34 days
PM1084 µg/m³
Optical depth1.41
5678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293012345678910
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 · 392Every 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 Chintur fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 April 2026 and 7 May 2026: 27 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 9,833 hectares (98.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Maredumilli (4,824 ha, 4.5 %); Chintur (2,926 ha, 3.2 %); Vararamachandrapuram (2,138 ha, 3.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.1 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 44 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

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
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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.