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IN · India · –

Mansa fire, 24 October 2016 Mansa, Maur, Tapa

Out · last detection 23 Nov 2016, 08:02 UTC

The fire started on 24 October 2016 in Mansa, India, and satellites saw it burning for 31 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,529 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 7th largest in Punjab since 2016 (of 33 with a page). Number 10 in India in 2016, of 47.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Barnala · 2020Gidderbaha · 2018Mansa · 2020Mansa · 2016

Burnt area
12,529ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
31days
24 Oct 2016 – 23 Nov 2016
Municipalities hit
3
subdistricts
Started on
24 Oct
2016
Heat detections
1,164
in a single hotspot: 64 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Average daily power
266MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Oct23 Nov
23 Nov 2016

How it evolved, day by day

24 Oct 2016 · 37 MW · 8 25 Oct 2016 · 18 MW · 4 26 Oct 2016 · 62 MW · 8 27 Oct 2016 · 114 MW · 14 28 Oct 2016 · 119 MW · 14 29 Oct 2016 · 104 MW · 11 30 Oct 2016 · 158 MW · 22 31 Oct 2016 · 427 MW · 52 1 Nov 2016 · 572 MW · 55 2 Nov 2016 · 191 MW · 32 3 Nov 2016 · 361 MW · 67 4 Nov 2016 · 266 MW · 36 5 Nov 2016 · 127 MW · 18 6 Nov 2016 · 963 MW · 122 7 Nov 2016 · 1,224 MW · 177 8 Nov 2016 · 494 MW · 71 9 Nov 2016 · 731 MW · 101 10 Nov 2016 · 315 MW · 68 11 Nov 2016 · 938 MW · 127 12 Nov 2016 · 425 MW · 56 13 Nov 2016 · 76 MW · 16 14 Nov 2016 · 146 MW · 20 15 Nov 2016 · 119 MW · 20 16 Nov 2016 · 146 MW · 19 17 Nov 2016 · 56 MW · 13 18 Nov 2016 · 12 MW · 5 19 Nov 2016 · 6 MW · 2 20 Nov 2016 · 7 MW · 2 21 Nov 2016 · 10 MW · 1 22 Nov 2016 · 5 MW · 1 23 Nov 2016 · 4 MW · 2
24 Oct 31 Oct 7 Nov 14 Nov 21 Nov

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
31km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 7.9% of the area of London (125 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. Mansa where it started
    9,621 ha reached on 24 Oct
    11 %
  2. Maur
    2,932 ha reached on 24 Oct
    6.0 %
  3. Tapa
    39 ha reached on 27 Oct
    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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2015
Built-up area62 ha
Residents≈ 5,600

Inside the perimeter there were about 62 hectares of built-up land and about 5,600 residents (GHSL 2015, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
24 Oct 33.5 °C 26 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Oct 33.0 °C 31 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Oct 32.7 °C 30 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
27 Oct 32.7 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
28 Oct 32.3 °C 26 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Oct 32.2 °C 27 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
30 Oct 31.1 °C 32 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
31 Oct 30.5 °C 33 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
1 Nov 30.0 °C 38 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
2 Nov 30.1 °C 41 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
3 Nov 30.2 °C 38 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
4 Nov 30.2 °C 38 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 Nov 29.5 °C 37 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
6 Nov 29.6 °C 35 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
7 Nov 29.3 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
8 Nov 30.4 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Nov 31.2 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Nov 30.0 °C 30 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Nov 30.4 °C 28 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Nov 29.2 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
13 Nov 28.3 °C 37 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
14 Nov 28.0 °C 31 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
15 Nov 27.4 °C 34 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
16 Nov 27.4 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
17 Nov 27.8 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Nov 28.3 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Nov 28.2 °C 30 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
20 Nov 28.8 °C 30 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
21 Nov 29.9 °C 27 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Nov 29.7 °C 29 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Nov 27.7 °C 36 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
24 Nov after 27.6 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
25 Nov after 28.7 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Nov after 28.6 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Nov after 29.2 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Nov after 28.7 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Nov after 28.2 °C 30 % 14 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
30 Nov after 27.0 °C 40 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
1 Dec after 26.0 °C 49 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
2 Dec after 26.3 °C 35 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
3 Dec after 26.8 °C 28 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 28

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 35.2, a minimum humidity of 26% and 14 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2017: 7.

FWI at the start 35.2
Minimum humidity 26 %
Days without rain 14
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Barnala fire, October 2020
20,502 ha 21 days FWI 34.2 Min. humidity 27 % 41 km away, in 2020

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 30.1 mm on 15 Nov.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 7. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
31km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 23 Nov, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2017.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Oct 2016
After · 30 Nov 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 · 1,164Every 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 Mansa fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 24 October 2016 to 23 November 2016 (31 days). The perimeter dates it from 31 October 2016 to 16 November 2016.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 12,529 hectares (125.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Mansa (9,621 ha, 11 %); Maur (2,932 ha, 6.0 %); Tapa (39 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 31 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 · 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: 16 November 2016 → 23 November 2016.
  2. Start date: 31 October 2016 → 24 October 2016.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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 31 October 2016 to 16 November 2016. 1,164 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2015, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.