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Kodur fire, April 2016 Kodur, Tirupati (Urban), Chinnagottigallu

Out · last detection 4 May 2016, 20:38 UTC

The fire started on 24 April 2016 in Kodur, India, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,305 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 19th largest in Andhra Pradesh since 2016 (of 30 with a page). Number 31 in India in 2016, of 47.

Burnt area
6,305ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
24 Apr 2016 – 3 May 2016
Municipalities hit
3
subdistricts
Started on
24 Apr
2016
Heat detections
207
in a single hotspot: 37 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 May 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Apr3 May

How it evolved, day by day

242526272829301234

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
35km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.5 mm on 6 May.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Kodur where it started
    4,874 ha reached on 24 Apr
    7.1 %
  2. Tirupati (Urban)
    1,228 ha reached on 28 Apr
    3.7 %
  3. Chinnagottigallu
    238 ha reached on 29 Apr
    1.0 %

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)
19 Apr 34.0 °C 38 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Apr 35.1 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Apr 36.5 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
22 Apr 37.0 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Apr 37.7 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Apr 38.3 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Apr 36.3 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Apr 35.3 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Apr 34.4 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Apr 35.9 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Apr 36.1 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Apr 36.4 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
1 May 37.2 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 May 37.0 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 May 36.2 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 May after 35.6 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 May after 35.2 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
6 May after 31.6 °C 54 % 31 km/h 6.5 mm Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Apr 2016
After · 10 May 2016

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 207Every 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 Kodur fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 April 2016 and 3 May 2016: 10 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 6,305 hectares (63.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Kodur (4,874 ha, 7.1 %); Tirupati (Urban) (1,228 ha, 3.7 %); Chinnagottigallu (238 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, class Very high.
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.

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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.