Skip to content
worldfires
IN · India · →

Mahasamund fire, December 2025 Mahasamund, Bagbahra, Pithora

Out · last detection 26 Dec 2025, 07:14 UTC

The fire started on 6 December 2025 in Mahasamund, India, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,370 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 19th largest in Chhattīsgarh since 2016 (of 37 with a page). Number 19 in India in 2025, of 33.

The power measured by the satellite is low (24.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
7,370ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
6 Dec 2025 – 25 Dec 2025
Municipalities hit
3
subdistricts
Started on
6 Dec
2025
Heat detections
245
in a single hotspot: 24 MW
Danger at start
14
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
1.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Dec 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Dec25 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

67910111213141516171819202123242526

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
27km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone 29 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

49% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 557 ha in 2016, 1,168 ha in 2017, 669 ha in 2018, 875 ha in 2019, 1,815 ha in 2020, 862 ha in 2021, 340 ha in 2022, 944 ha in 2023, 385 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,618 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mahasamund where it started
    6,485 ha reached on 3 Dec
    6.0 %
  2. Bagbahra
    796 ha reached on 7 Dec
    0.8 %
  3. Pithora
    125 ha reached on 5 Dec
    0.1 %

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)
1 Dec 26.0 °C 49 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
2 Dec 25.8 °C 51 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
3 Dec 26.3 °C 45 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
4 Dec 26.0 °C 44 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
5 Dec 25.5 °C 44 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
6 Dec 25.3 °C 35 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
7 Dec 26.5 °C 32 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
8 Dec 26.8 °C 29 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
9 Dec 26.9 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
10 Dec 26.4 °C 29 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
11 Dec 26.5 °C 31 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
12 Dec 26.5 °C 32 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
13 Dec 26.1 °C 36 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
14 Dec 26.0 °C 39 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
15 Dec 25.9 °C 44 % 14 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
16 Dec 25.9 °C 42 % 14 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
17 Dec 26.9 °C 41 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
18 Dec 26.2 °C 37 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
19 Dec 24.3 °C 42 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
20 Dec 24.6 °C 40 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
21 Dec 24.7 °C 37 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
22 Dec 24.4 °C 47 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
23 Dec 25.2 °C 41 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
24 Dec 25.9 °C 38 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
25 Dec 25.7 °C 41 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
26 Dec after 25.5 °C 41 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
27 Dec after 25.3 °C 42 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
28 Dec after 25.5 °C 40 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
29 Dec after 25.9 °C 38 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
30 Dec after 27.0 °C 35 % 14 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
31 Dec after 26.9 °C 34 % 13 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
1 Jan after 26.8 °C 33 % 13 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
2 Jan after 27.0 °C 40 % 13 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
3 Jan after 26.6 °C 48 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
4 Jan after 25.2 °C 53 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
5 Jan after 24.2 °C 51 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
6 Jan after 24.4 °C 34 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
7 Jan after 26.1 °C 31 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
8 Jan after 25.7 °C 30 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
9 Jan after 25.3 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
10 Jan after 24.1 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 25

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Nov 2025
After · 1 Jan 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 17 December 2025 the air beside the fire reached 194 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 148: 9.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak194 µg/m³
Days over the guideline25 days
PM10208 µg/m³
Optical depth0.89
45678910111213141516171819202122232425262728
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 · 245Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mahasamund fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 December 2025 and 25 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 7,370 hectares (73.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Mahasamund (6,485 ha, 6.0 %); Bagbahra (796 ha, 0.8 %); Pithora (125 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.0 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 27 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, 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

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.

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.

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.