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Garu fire, May 2019 Garu, Mahuadanr

Out · last measured on 13 May 2019

The fire started on 6 May 2019 in Garu, India, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,895 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

Number 8 in India in 2019, of 28.

We have the GWIS perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
8,895ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
6 May 2019 – 13 May 2019
Municipalities hit
2
subdistricts
Started on
6 May
2019
Danger at start
50
Very high · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

41°high
51km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 23 May.

This area had burned before

56% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,944 ha in 2016, 477 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,018 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Garu where it started
    7,928 ha
    16 %
  2. Mahuadanr
    1,008 ha
    1.8 %

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)
6 May 38.5 °C 13 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
7 May 40.5 °C 11 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
8 May 41.0 °C 9 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
9 May 41.2 °C 13 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
10 May 41.4 °C 8 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
11 May 41.3 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
12 May 40.3 °C 19 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
13 May 38.5 °C 22 % 34 km/h 1.1 mm Very high 42
14 May after 38.1 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.8 mm High 36
15 May after 39.0 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
16 May after 38.4 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 May after 40.9 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 May after 40.3 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 May after 39.6 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 May after 39.3 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
21 May after 40.6 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
22 May after 41.6 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 49
23 May after 40.2 °C 29 % 37 km/h 1.9 mm High 30

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Apr 2019
After · 20 May 2019

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Other fires nearby

All fires in India ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Garu fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 May 2019 and 13 May 2019: 8 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 8,895 hectares (89.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Garu (7,928 ha, 16 %); Mahuadanr (1,008 ha, 1.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.4 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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

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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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.