How long did the Lungsen fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 March 2025 and 18 March 2025: 8 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 7,060 hectares (70.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Lungsen (7,100 ha, 6.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.

IN · India · 2025-03-11 → 2025-03-18

Lungsen fire, March 2025 Lungsen

Out · last detection 18 Mar 2025, 07:15 UTC

The fire started on 11 March 2025 in Lungsen, India, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,060 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 20th largest in Mizoram since 2016 (of 44 with a page). Number 22 in India in 2025, of 33.

Burnt area: 7,060ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 8days; 11 Mar 2025 – 18 Mar 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; subdistricts
Started on: 11 Mar; 2025
Heat detections: 237; in a single hotspot: 300 MW
Danger at start: 32; High · FWI index
Energy released: 9.2GW; sum of detected power

Play back 18 Mar 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Mar18 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

11121314151618

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

The weather it burned in

36°high

46km/h · peak gust

21%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,056 ha in 2016, 685 ha in 2017, 2,706 ha in 2018, 2,475 ha in 2019, 3,140 ha in 2020, 2,774 ha in 2021, 4,631 ha in 2022, 3,637 ha in 2023, 3,780 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,978 ha that had burned before.

951 ha West Bunghmun fire, March 2022 21,867 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Lungsen where it started

7,100 ha reached on 8 Mar

6.4 %

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)
8 Mar	32.6 °C	24 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
9 Mar	33.2 °C	27 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
10 Mar	35.0 °C	22 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
11 Mar	34.2 °C	26 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
12 Mar	33.6 °C	34 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
13 Mar	35.1 °C	30 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
14 Mar	34.5 °C	35 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
15 Mar	35.5 °C	35 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
16 Mar	35.9 °C	36 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
17 Mar	35.0 °C	37 %	35 km/h	0.3 mm	High 33
18 Mar	34.0 °C	45 %	39 km/h	0.7 mm	High 23
19 Mar after	36.2 °C	27 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
20 Mar after	34.5 °C	36 %	39 km/h	0.1 mm	High 36
21 Mar after	33.9 °C	35 %	40 km/h	0.1 mm	High 36
22 Mar after	34.0 °C	30 %	42 km/h	0.1 mm	High 37
23 Mar after	34.8 °C	22 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
24 Mar after	35.1 °C	21 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
25 Mar after	35.4 °C	21 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
26 Mar after	35.9 °C	25 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
27 Mar after	33.8 °C	39 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
28 Mar after	35.9 °C	29 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
29 Mar after	36.6 °C	31 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
30 Mar after	37.3 °C	25 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
31 Mar after	36.2 °C	33 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
1 Apr after	35.4 °C	36 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
2 Apr after	36.5 °C	30 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
3 Apr after	37.4 °C	34 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
4 Apr after	35.1 °C	42 %	34 km/h	0.1 mm	High 32

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 4 Mar 2025

After · 25 Mar 2025

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 12 March 2025 the air beside the fire reached 158 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 92: 6.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak158 µg/m³

Days over the guideline13 days

PM10166 µg/m³

Optical depth1.73

WHO 15

9101112131415161718192021

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 · 237Every 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 India ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Lungsen fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 March 2025 and 18 March 2025: 8 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 7,060 hectares (70.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Lungsen (7,100 ha, 6.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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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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.

Where it burned