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Itwa fire, April 2023 Itwa

Out · last measured on 13 Apr 2023

The fire started on 7 April 2023 in Itwa, India, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,519 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 16th largest in Uttar Pradesh since 2016 (of 30 with a page). Number 14 in India in 2023, of 23.

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
6,519ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
7 Apr 2023 – 13 Apr 2023
Municipalities hit
1
subdistricts
Started on
7 Apr
2023
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

40°high
56km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 21 Apr.

This area had burned before

95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,448 ha in 2016, 1,715 ha in 2017, 2,035 ha in 2018, 4,304 ha in 2019, 182 ha in 2020, 2,649 ha in 2021, 2,746 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,166 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Itwa where it started
    6,546 ha
    12 %

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 36.6 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Apr 36.4 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Apr 36.9 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Apr 37.3 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
11 Apr 37.6 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Apr 39.3 °C 14 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
13 Apr 39.5 °C 14 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
14 Apr after 39.2 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
15 Apr after 39.3 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Apr after 40.8 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
17 Apr after 41.7 °C 16 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
18 Apr after 42.1 °C 15 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
19 Apr after 41.7 °C 16 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
20 Apr after 41.3 °C 16 % 55 km/h 0.3 mm Very extreme 71
21 Apr after 35.1 °C 26 % 35 km/h 2.5 mm High 27

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Mar 2023
After · 20 Apr 2023

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 15 April 2023 the air beside the fire reached 69 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 42: 2.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak69 µg/m³
Days over the guideline10 days
PM1099 µg/m³
Optical depth0.50
5678910111213141516
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in India ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Itwa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 April 2023 and 13 April 2023: 7 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 6,519 hectares (65.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Itwa (6,546 ha, 12 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.5 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

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.