How long did the Jhang fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 22 October 2026 to 3 November 2026 (13 days). The perimeter dates it from 29 October 2026 to 2 November 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,685 hectares (16.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Jhang (1,614 ha, 0.6 %); 18-Hazari (79 ha, 0.0 %).

Is the Jhang fire still active?

No fire detections since 3 Nov 2026, 08:37 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 30.9 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 18, class Moderate.

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.

PK · Pakistan · 2026-10-22 → 2026-11-03

Jhang fire, 22 October 2026 Jhang, 18-Hazari

Dying down · last detection 3 Nov 2026, 08:37 UTC

The fire started on 22 October 2026 in Jhang, Pakistan, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,685 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 21th largest in Punjab since 2016 (of 60 with a page). Number 6 in Pakistan in 2026, of 22.

The power measured by the satellite is low (22.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Jhang · 2025 Jhang · 2025 Jhang · 2025 Jhang · 2026

Is it still active?

No detections since 3 Nov 2026, 08:37 UTC. That usually means no flame is visible from space any more, although hotspots may remain. Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.

Burnt area: 1,685ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 13days; 22 Oct 2026 – 3 Nov 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; subdistricts
Started on: 22 Oct; 2026
Heat detections: 32; in a single hotspot: 23 MW
Danger at start: 14; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 24MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Oct3 Nov

Play back 3 Nov 2026

How it evolved, day by day

22 Oct 25 Oct 28 Oct 30 Oct 1 Nov 3 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

31°high

36km/h · peak gust

35%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

57% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 438 ha in 2023, 154 ha in 2024, 733 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 968 ha that had burned before.

727 ha Jhang fire, October 2025 5,595 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 1.1% of the area of London (17 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

Jhang where it started

1,614 ha reached on 22 Oct

0.6 %
18-Hazari

79 ha reached on 31 Oct

0.0 %

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.

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) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Rain	Danger (FWI)
22 Oct	30.9 °C	45 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
23 Oct	29.0 °C	55 %	25 km/h	3.2 mm	Low 10
24 Oct	28.5 °C	35 %	36 km/h	1.2 mm	Moderate 15
25 Oct	27.3 °C	45 %	16 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 11
26 Oct	28.5 °C	41 %	12 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
27 Oct	28.6 °C	44 %	17 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
28 Oct	29.0 °C	39 %	17 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
29 Oct	29.3 °C	36 %	13 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
30 Oct	28.0 °C	45 %	16 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
31 Oct	28.6 °C	44 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
1 Nov	28.8 °C	45 %	15 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
2 Nov	29.0 °C	45 %	16 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
3 Nov	28.7 °C	44 %	17 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 15 Oct 2026

After · 2 Nov 2026

Before After

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 2 November 2026 the air beside the fire reached 181 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 122: 8.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak181 µg/m³

Days over the guideline14 days

PM10203 µg/m³

Optical depth1.07

WHO 15

20212223242526272829303112

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 · 32Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Pakistan ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Jhang fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 22 October 2026 to 3 November 2026 (13 days). The perimeter dates it from 29 October 2026 to 2 November 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,685 hectares (16.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Jhang (1,614 ha, 0.6 %); 18-Hazari (79 ha, 0.0 %).
Is the Jhang fire still active?: No fire detections since 3 Nov 2026, 08:37 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 30.9 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 18, class Moderate.
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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 3 November 2026.

3 November 2026 Page published (1,685 ha).

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 29 October 2026 to 2 November 2026. 32 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: ECMWF IFS model, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives.

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.