Giddalur fire, 26 March 2026 Bandi Atmakur, Giddalur, Mahanandi
The fire started on 26 March 2026 in Giddalur, India, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 18,912 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 3th largest in Andhra Pradesh since 2016 (of 30 with a page). Number 8 in India in 2026, of 58.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 18,912ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 26days
- 26 Mar 2026 – 20 Apr 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- subdistricts
- Started on
- 26 Mar
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 574
- in a single hotspot: 86 MW
- Danger at start
- 40
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 148MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 28 Apr.
This area had burned before
94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,818 ha in 2016, 4,140 ha in 2017, 3,554 ha in 2018, 7,324 ha in 2019, 765 ha in 2020, 12,724 ha in 2021, 10,277 ha in 2023, 6,415 ha in 2024, 771 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 17,855 ha that had burned before.
- 8,883 ha Bandi Atmakur fire, March 2021 14,988 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,156 ha Bandi Atmakur fire, February 2023 9,133 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,270 ha Giddalur fire, February 2019 5,738 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
11,723 ha reached on 30 Mar17 %
-
Giddalur where it started6,888 ha reached on 26 Mar7.9 %
-
412 ha reached on 28 Mar1.5 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 Mar | 35.8 °C | 24 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 27 Mar | 36.5 °C | 24 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 28 Mar | 34.2 °C | 32 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 29 Mar | 35.6 °C | 28 % | 28 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very high 40 |
| 30 Mar | 35.8 °C | 25 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 31 Mar | 34.9 °C | 30 % | 36 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 41 |
| 1 Apr | 35.5 °C | 26 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 2 Apr | 34.4 °C | 27 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 3 Apr | 35.5 °C | 28 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 4 Apr | 36.1 °C | 27 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 5 Apr | 35.6 °C | 28 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 6 Apr | 36.3 °C | 22 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 7 Apr | 36.1 °C | 19 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 8 Apr | 37.3 °C | 19 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 9 Apr | 36.7 °C | 25 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 10 Apr | 37.1 °C | 30 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 11 Apr | 38.0 °C | 25 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 12 Apr | 37.9 °C | 26 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 13 Apr | 38.1 °C | 22 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 14 Apr | 39.1 °C | 20 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 15 Apr | 38.7 °C | 19 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 16 Apr | 39.3 °C | 22 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 17 Apr | 39.7 °C | 19 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 18 Apr | 39.0 °C | 23 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 19 Apr | 38.5 °C | 24 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 20 Apr | 37.7 °C | 27 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 21 Apr after | 38.0 °C | 23 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 22 Apr after | 38.5 °C | 21 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 23 Apr after | 38.2 °C | 21 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 24 Apr after | 38.6 °C | 20 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 25 Apr after | 38.5 °C | 22 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 26 Apr after | 39.8 °C | 17 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 27 Apr after | 38.5 °C | 23 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 28 Apr after | 38.1 °C | 29 % | 31 km/h | 2.4 mm | High 26 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 29 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 58 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 49: 3.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 574Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 14,988 haBandi AtmakurMarch 2021 · 15 days · 1 km away
- 9,133 haBandi AtmakurFebruary 2023 · 14 days · 2 km away
- 5,738 haGiddalur22 February 2019 · 5 days · 7 km away
- 7,772 haArdhaveeduFebruary 2019 · 5 days · 13 km away
- 8,229 haGiddalur8 March 2026 · 9 days · 14 km away
- 9,853 haAtmakurMarch 2021 · 14 days · 21 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Giddalur fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 March 2026 to 20 April 2026 (26 days). The perimeter dates it from 26 March 2026 to 19 April 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 18,912 hectares (189.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Bandi Atmakur (11,723 ha, 17 %); Giddalur (6,888 ha, 7.9 %); Mahanandi (412 ha, 1.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.7 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 19 April 2026 → 20 April 2026.
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
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 26 March 2026 to 19 April 2026. 574 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 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.