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Hardwar fire, April 2016 Hardwar, Rishikesh, Dehradun

Out · last detection 2 May 2016, 21:11 UTC

The fire started on 20 April 2016 in Hardwar, India, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 17,719 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the 2th largest in Uttarākhand since 2016 (of 16 with a page). Number 7 in India in 2016, of 47.

Burnt area
17,719ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
20 Apr 2016 – 1 May 2016
Municipalities hit
4
subdistricts
Started on
20 Apr
2016
Heat detections
688
in a single hotspot: 62 MW
Danger at start
20
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
5.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 May 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Apr1 May

How it evolved, day by day

202122232425262728293012

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
46km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.6 mm on 5 May.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Hardwar where it started
    7,984 ha reached on 20 Apr
    14 %
  2. Rishikesh
    5,285 ha reached on 21 Apr
    12 %
  3. Dehradun
    2,507 ha reached on 24 Apr
    4.2 %
  4. Bhagwanpur
    2,006 ha reached on 28 Apr
    3.7 %

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)
18 Apr 34.6 °C 23 % 26 km/h 2.8 mm Moderate 20
19 Apr 36.7 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Apr 37.1 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
21 Apr 36.7 °C 18 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
22 Apr 34.8 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.9 mm Very high 42
23 Apr 33.6 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Apr 33.7 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Apr 34.9 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Apr 37.2 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
27 Apr 37.0 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
28 Apr 36.5 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
29 Apr 35.7 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
30 Apr 36.4 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
1 May 37.5 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
2 May after 38.5 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
3 May after 34.3 °C 31 % 35 km/h 1.4 mm High 31
4 May after 34.5 °C 30 % 32 km/h 2.5 mm Moderate 20
5 May after 31.7 °C 32 % 29 km/h 2.6 mm Moderate 13

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Apr 2016
After · 8 May 2016

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 · 688Every 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 Hardwar fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 April 2016 and 1 May 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 17,719 hectares (177.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Hardwar (7,984 ha, 14 %); Rishikesh (5,285 ha, 12 %); Dehradun (2,507 ha, 4.2 %); Bhagwanpur (2,006 ha, 3.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.5 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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.