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Kochas fire, 9 April 2026 Kargahar, Kochas, Kudra

Out · last detection 29 Apr 2026, 07:13 UTC

The fire started on 9 April 2026 in Kochas, India, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 39,337 hectares from heat detections, spread across 9 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.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Kargahar · 2025Kochas · 2025Kochas · 2026

Burnt area
39,337ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
9 Apr 2026 – 28 Apr 2026
Municipalities hit
9
subdistricts
Started on
9 Apr
2026
Heat detections
1,562
in a single hotspot: 158 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Average daily power
721MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Apr28 Apr
29 Apr 2026

How it evolved, day by day

9 Apr 2026 · 3 MW · 2 10 Apr 2026 · 235 MW · 19 11 Apr 2026 · 93 MW · 19 12 Apr 2026 · 1,187 MW · 106 13 Apr 2026 · 2,384 MW · 247 14 Apr 2026 · 3,323 MW · 257 15 Apr 2026 · 2,012 MW · 227 16 Apr 2026 · 1,287 MW · 115 17 Apr 2026 · 477 MW · 79 18 Apr 2026 · 680 MW · 114 19 Apr 2026 · 1,446 MW · 131 20 Apr 2026 · 510 MW · 72 21 Apr 2026 · 215 MW · 57 22 Apr 2026 · 202 MW · 39 23 Apr 2026 · 99 MW · 32 24 Apr 2026 · 148 MW · 33 26 Apr 2026 · 91 MW · 8 27 Apr 2026 · 12 MW · 2 28 Apr 2026 · 6 MW · 2 29 Apr 2026 · 13 MW · 1
9 Apr 12 Apr 14 Apr 15 Apr 18 Apr 21 Apr 24 Apr 28 Apr

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

The weather it burned in

43°high
47km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 29 Apr.

This area had burned before

92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 8,303 ha in 2016, 7,018 ha in 2017, 14,497 ha in 2018, 12,655 ha in 2019, 5,184 ha in 2020, 12,267 ha in 2021, 16,072 ha in 2022, 6,161 ha in 2023, 13,161 ha in 2024, 30,202 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 36,204 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 25% of the area of London (393 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. Kargahar
    18,977 ha reached on 9 Apr
    56 %
  2. Kochas where it started
    10,763 ha reached on 10 Apr
    47 %
  3. Kudra
    6,021 ha reached on 12 Apr
    29 %
  4. Sheosagar
    2,472 ha reached on 9 Apr
    6.8 %
  5. Sasaram
    605 ha reached on 13 Apr
    1.7 %
  6. Dinara
    446 ha reached on 12 Apr
    1.3 %
  7. Mohania
    158 ha reached on 13 Apr
    0.6 %
  8. Chenari
    49 ha reached on 15 Apr
    0.2 %
  9. Rajpur
    17 ha
    0.1 %

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)
9 Apr 32.2 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
10 Apr 33.6 °C 21 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Apr 36.2 °C 18 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Apr 37.8 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Apr 36.8 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Apr 38.1 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
15 Apr 40.3 °C 20 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Apr 38.5 °C 30 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
17 Apr 39.3 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Apr 41.2 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Apr 42.3 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
20 Apr 41.6 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
21 Apr 41.6 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
22 Apr 41.6 °C 14 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
23 Apr 42.0 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
24 Apr 42.2 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
25 Apr 42.9 °C 17 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
26 Apr 41.5 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.3 mm Extreme 53
27 Apr 38.9 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Apr 38.3 °C 39 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
29 Apr after 38.2 °C 44 % 41 km/h 1.5 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Apr 2026
After · 5 May 2026

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 24 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 95 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 63: 4.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak95 µg/m³
Days over the guideline30 days
PM10492 µg/m³
Optical depth1.23
123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930
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 · 1,562Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 9 April 2026 to 28 April 2026 (20 days). The perimeter dates it from 10 April 2026 to 22 April 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 39,337 hectares (393.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 9 municipalities: Kargahar (18,977 ha, 56 %); Kochas (10,763 ha, 47 %); Kudra (6,021 ha, 29 %); Sheosagar (2,472 ha, 6.8 %); Sasaram (605 ha, 1.7 %); Dinara (446 ha, 1.3 %); Mohania (158 ha, 0.6 %); Chenari (49 ha, 0.2 %); Rajpur (17 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 42.9 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 22 April 2026 → 28 April 2026.
  2. Start date: 10 April 2026 → 9 April 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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 10 April 2026 to 22 April 2026. 1,562 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.