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Jhang fire, 23 October 2025 Jhang, 18-Hazari

Out · last detection 10 Nov 2025, 08:19 UTC

The fire started on 23 October 2025 in Jhang, Pakistan, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,595 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in Punjab since 2016 (of 48 with a page). The largest in Pakistan in 2025, of 30.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Jhang · 2025Jhang · 2025Jhang · 2025Jhang · 2025

Burnt area
5,595ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
19days
23 Oct 2025 – 10 Nov 2025
Municipalities hit
2
subdistricts
Started on
23 Oct
2025
Heat detections
189
in a single hotspot: 62 MW
Danger at start
20
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
55MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Oct10 Nov
10 Nov 2025

How it evolved, day by day

23 Oct 2025 · 37 MW · 6 24 Oct 2025 · 47 MW · 8 25 Oct 2025 · 48 MW · 12 26 Oct 2025 · 68 MW · 13 27 Oct 2025 · 14 MW · 3 28 Oct 2025 · 24 MW · 5 29 Oct 2025 · 61 MW · 12 30 Oct 2025 · 196 MW · 21 31 Oct 2025 · 101 MW · 14 1 Nov 2025 · 69 MW · 12 2 Nov 2025 · 78 MW · 14 3 Nov 2025 · 39 MW · 7 4 Nov 2025 · 97 MW · 13 5 Nov 2025 · 62 MW · 12 6 Nov 2025 · 22 MW · 6 7 Nov 2025 · 49 MW · 9 8 Nov 2025 · 8 MW · 4 9 Nov 2025 · 22 MW · 3 10 Nov 2025 · 11 MW · 3
23 Oct 26 Oct 29 Oct 30 Oct 1 Nov 4 Nov 7 Nov 10 Nov

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

34°high
39km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

31% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 119 ha in 2016, 640 ha in 2021, 189 ha in 2022, 486 ha in 2023, 642 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,723 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.5% of the area of London (56 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Jhang where it started
    3,224 ha reached on 18 Oct
    1.2 %
  2. 18-Hazari
    2,398 ha reached on 19 Oct
    1.4 %

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 2025
Built-up area106 ha
Residents≈ 18,000

Inside the perimeter there were about 106 hectares of built-up land and about 18,000 residents (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)
18 Oct 33.9 °C 32 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
19 Oct 33.6 °C 32 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
20 Oct 33.5 °C 27 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
21 Oct 33.0 °C 26 % 14 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
22 Oct 33.1 °C 28 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
23 Oct 34.1 °C 26 % 13 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
24 Oct 33.5 °C 31 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
25 Oct 32.8 °C 34 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
26 Oct 32.7 °C 33 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
27 Oct 32.4 °C 34 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
28 Oct 30.8 °C 44 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
29 Oct 31.6 °C 43 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
30 Oct 31.4 °C 38 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
31 Oct 32.6 °C 30 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
1 Nov 31.9 °C 37 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
2 Nov 32.2 °C 37 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
3 Nov 30.9 °C 38 % 14 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
4 Nov 30.2 °C 33 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
5 Nov 27.6 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Nov 29.5 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Nov 29.7 °C 19 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
8 Nov 29.1 °C 21 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
9 Nov 29.0 °C 18 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
10 Nov 28.0 °C 28 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Nov after 27.4 °C 29 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
12 Nov after 28.0 °C 24 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Nov after 29.2 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
14 Nov after 27.9 °C 29 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
15 Nov after 27.7 °C 29 % 14 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
16 Nov after 27.5 °C 27 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
17 Nov after 27.3 °C 29 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
18 Nov after 26.3 °C 31 % 13 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
19 Nov after 26.0 °C 37 % 13 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
20 Nov after 25.7 °C 38 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
21 Nov after 25.5 °C 37 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
22 Nov after 26.0 °C 29 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
23 Nov after 25.0 °C 37 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
24 Nov after 24.4 °C 42 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
25 Nov after 24.6 °C 36 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
26 Nov after 23.6 °C 36 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 25

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Oct 2025
After · 17 Nov 2025

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 29 October 2025 the air beside the fire reached 156 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 116: 7.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak156 µg/m³
Days over the guideline24 days
PM10165 µg/m³
Optical depth1.16
212223242526272829303112345678910111213
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 · 189Every 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 Pakistan ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Jhang fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 October 2025 and 10 November 2025: 19 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 5,595 hectares (56.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Jhang (3,224 ha, 1.2 %); 18-Hazari (2,398 ha, 1.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.1 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Pakistan (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: 1122 · 16 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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 1122 · 16.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 189 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.