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Kochas fire, December 2025 Kochas, Kudra, Nuaon

Out · last detection 23 Dec 2025, 08:12 UTC

The fire started on 3 December 2025 in Kochas, India, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,879 hectares from heat detections, spread across 6 municipalities.

This entry is very probably agricultural burning of stubble or straw that the satellite has merged into a single perimeter, not a wildfire in natural vegetation. We reviewed it by hand: the perimeter comes only from GWIS, lies on densely populated farmland and matches the season when stubble is burnt after the harvest. That is why it is not included in the wildfire rankings.

The power measured by the satellite is low (21.5 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: Kochas · 2026Kochas · 2026Kargahar · 2025

Burnt area
5,879ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
3 Dec 2025 – 22 Dec 2025
Municipalities hit
6
subdistricts
Started on
3 Dec
2025
Heat detections
231
in a single hotspot: 22 MW
Danger at start
11
Low · FWI index
Average daily power
46MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Dec22 Dec
23 Dec 2025

How it evolved, day by day

3 Dec 2025 · 40 MW · 13 4 Dec 2025 · 47 MW · 11 5 Dec 2025 · 37 MW · 8 6 Dec 2025 · 51 MW · 8 7 Dec 2025 · 19 MW · 4 8 Dec 2025 · 141 MW · 26 9 Dec 2025 · 138 MW · 36 10 Dec 2025 · 46 MW · 14 11 Dec 2025 · 71 MW · 18 12 Dec 2025 · 25 MW · 9 13 Dec 2025 · 48 MW · 16 14 Dec 2025 · 33 MW · 11 15 Dec 2025 · 39 MW · 13 16 Dec 2025 · 6 MW · 2 17 Dec 2025 · 13 MW · 4 19 Dec 2025 · 73 MW · 22 22 Dec 2025 · 5 MW · 2 23 Dec 2025 · 4 MW · 1
3 Dec 6 Dec 8 Dec 9 Dec 12 Dec 15 Dec 19 Dec

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

The weather it burned in

27°high
28km/h · peak gust
37%lowest humidity

It had gone 25 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,023 ha in 2016, 316 ha in 2017, 2,026 ha in 2018, 1,786 ha in 2019, 1,052 ha in 2020, 1,683 ha in 2021, 1,603 ha in 2022, 1,002 ha in 2023, 2,419 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,822 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.7% of the area of London (59 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. Kochas where it started
    4,092 ha
    18 %
  2. Kudra
    909 ha
    4.4 %
  3. Nuaon
    616 ha
    3.3 %
  4. Kargahar
    270 ha
    0.8 %
  5. Mohania
    12 ha
    0.0 %
  6. Ramgarh
    5 ha
    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) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
26 Nov 25.2 °C 37 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
27 Nov 25.5 °C 47 % 13 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 11
28 Nov 26.2 °C 48 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
29 Nov 26.1 °C 47 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
30 Nov 26.6 °C 43 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
1 Dec 25.8 °C 43 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
2 Dec 25.3 °C 39 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
3 Dec 25.8 °C 40 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
4 Dec 25.3 °C 40 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
5 Dec 24.4 °C 37 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
6 Dec 23.6 °C 39 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
7 Dec 23.8 °C 45 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
8 Dec 23.6 °C 47 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
9 Dec 25.2 °C 44 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
10 Dec 24.9 °C 42 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
11 Dec 24.4 °C 42 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
12 Dec 24.1 °C 49 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
13 Dec 24.1 °C 48 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
14 Dec 24.3 °C 49 % 14 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
15 Dec 24.2 °C 51 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
16 Dec 23.1 °C 56 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
17 Dec 22.4 °C 58 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 11
18 Dec 18.4 °C 60 % 13 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
19 Dec 16.7 °C 67 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
20 Dec 17.6 °C 66 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
21 Dec 16.8 °C 70 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
22 Dec 16.9 °C 68 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
23 Dec after 18.7 °C 67 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
24 Dec after 20.1 °C 63 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
25 Dec after 18.9 °C 61 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
26 Dec after 18.0 °C 64 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
27 Dec after 16.7 °C 65 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
28 Dec after 16.1 °C 68 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
29 Dec after 15.4 °C 69 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
30 Dec after 17.6 °C 62 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
31 Dec after 19.3 °C 56 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
1 Jan after 20.5 °C 61 % 14 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
2 Jan after 20.6 °C 61 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 11
3 Jan after 16.0 °C 77 % 22 km/h 0.1 mm Low 8
4 Jan after 15.8 °C 66 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
5 Jan after 16.2 °C 62 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Nov 2025
After · 29 Dec 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 12 December 2025 the air beside the fire reached 292 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 213: 14 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak292 µg/m³
Days over the guideline25 days
PM10302 µg/m³
Optical depth1.80
12345678910111213141516171819202122232425
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 · 231Every 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 Kochas fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 December 2025 and 22 December 2025: 20 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 5,879 hectares (58.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 6 municipalities: Kochas (4,092 ha, 18 %); Kudra (909 ha, 4.4 %); Nuaon (616 ha, 3.3 %); Kargahar (270 ha, 0.8 %); Mohania (12 ha, 0.0 %); Ramgarh (5 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 26.6 °C, humidity dropped to 37 % and gusts hit 28 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 15, class Moderate.
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 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 112.

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. 231 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.
  • Probably a vegetation burn: not counted in the totals.

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.