Krishnapur fire, March 2021 Krishnapur, Shuklaphanta, Parashuram
The fire started on 31 March 2021 in Krishnapur, Nepal, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,762 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.
It is the 9th largest in Sudurpaschim since 2016 (of 34 with a page). Number 10 in Nepal in 2021, of 39.
The power measured by the satellite is low (10.3 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…
- Burnt area
- 3,762ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 20days
- 31 Mar 2021 – 19 Apr 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 4
- municipalities
- Started on
- 31 Mar
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 214
- in a single hotspot: 10 MW
- Danger at start
- 32
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 33MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 40 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 21 Apr.
This area had burned before
87% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,756 ha in 2016, 147 ha in 2017, 2,220 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,270 ha that had burned before.
- 1,359 ha Chure fire, April 2019 14,029 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,032 ha Alital fire, April 2016 4,087 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 824 ha Jorayal fire, April 2016 21,988 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Krishnapur where it started1,898 ha reached on 31 Mar7.5 %
-
1,164 ha reached on 31 Mar7.2 %
-
521 ha reached on 1 Apr1.3 %
-
194 ha reached on 3 Apr0.7 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31 Mar | 28.1 °C | 22 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 1 Apr | 26.4 °C | 24 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 2 Apr | 27.3 °C | 20 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 3 Apr | 27.3 °C | 17 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 4 Apr | 28.8 °C | 19 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 5 Apr | 29.4 °C | 21 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 6 Apr | 30.0 °C | 25 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 7 Apr | 30.2 °C | 31 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 8 Apr | 30.4 °C | 18 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 9 Apr | 30.6 °C | 17 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 10 Apr | 30.6 °C | 15 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 11 Apr | 30.8 °C | 18 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 12 Apr | 30.8 °C | 19 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 13 Apr | 31.3 °C | 19 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 14 Apr | 32.6 °C | 22 % | 42 km/h | 0.4 mm | Very high 42 |
| 15 Apr | 31.3 °C | 22 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 16 Apr | 31.8 °C | 22 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 17 Apr | 28.3 °C | 26 % | 35 km/h | 0.7 mm | High 30 |
| 18 Apr | 28.6 °C | 27 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 19 Apr | 30.5 °C | 20 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 20 Apr after | 31.9 °C | 16 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 21 Apr after | 26.8 °C | 35 % | 46 km/h | 1.4 mm | Moderate 19 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 214Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Krishnapur fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 31 March 2021 to 19 April 2021 (20 days). The perimeter dates it from 6 April 2021 to 12 April 2021.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,762 hectares (37.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 4 municipalities: Krishnapur (1,898 ha, 7.5 %); Shuklaphanta (1,164 ha, 7.2 %); Parashuram (521 ha, 1.3 %); Alital (194 ha, 0.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.6 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, class Very high.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Nepal (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: 101 · 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.
- Last day with fire: 12 April 2021 → 19 April 2021.
- Start date: 6 April 2021 → 31 March 2021.
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
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 6 April 2021 to 12 April 2021. 214 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.
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 (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License). 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.