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Moga fire, October 2016 Dharamkot, Moga, Jagraon

Out · last detection 20 Nov 2016, 07:19 UTC

The fire started on 26 October 2016 in Moga, India, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,542 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 16th largest in Punjab since 2016 (of 33 with a page). Number 19 in India in 2016, of 47.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Moga · 2021Raikot · 2021Nihal Singhwala · 2020Barnala · 2016

Burnt area
8,542ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
26days
26 Oct 2016 – 20 Nov 2016
Municipalities hit
3
subdistricts
Started on
26 Oct
2016
Heat detections
774
in a single hotspot: 70 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Average daily power
242MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Oct20 Nov
20 Nov 2016

How it evolved, day by day

26 Oct 2016 · 76 MW · 8 27 Oct 2016 · 26 MW · 5 28 Oct 2016 · 31 MW · 7 29 Oct 2016 · 20 MW · 4 30 Oct 2016 · 123 MW · 24 31 Oct 2016 · 95 MW · 14 1 Nov 2016 · 95 MW · 18 2 Nov 2016 · 174 MW · 27 3 Nov 2016 · 153 MW · 23 4 Nov 2016 · 242 MW · 42 5 Nov 2016 · 399 MW · 55 6 Nov 2016 · 780 MW · 86 7 Nov 2016 · 663 MW · 100 8 Nov 2016 · 760 MW · 64 9 Nov 2016 · 625 MW · 60 10 Nov 2016 · 552 MW · 71 11 Nov 2016 · 741 MW · 67 12 Nov 2016 · 296 MW · 39 13 Nov 2016 · 156 MW · 17 14 Nov 2016 · 45 MW · 5 15 Nov 2016 · 106 MW · 14 16 Nov 2016 · 76 MW · 10 17 Nov 2016 · 7 MW · 3 18 Nov 2016 · 12 MW · 5 19 Nov 2016 · 19 MW · 4 20 Nov 2016 · 7 MW · 2
26 Oct 30 Oct 3 Nov 6 Nov 7 Nov 11 Nov 15 Nov 19 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

32°high
31km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 33 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 5.4% of the area of London (85 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. Dharamkot
    4,997 ha reached on 26 Oct
    8.9 %
  2. Moga where it started
    2,475 ha reached on 26 Oct
    3.8 %
  3. Jagraon
    1,096 ha reached on 26 Oct
    1.4 %

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)
26 Oct 32.5 °C 30 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Oct 32.5 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Oct 32.3 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Oct 31.6 °C 30 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
30 Oct 30.6 °C 32 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
31 Oct 30.2 °C 36 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
1 Nov 30.0 °C 39 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
2 Nov 30.0 °C 42 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
3 Nov 29.9 °C 38 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
4 Nov 29.8 °C 41 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
5 Nov 29.5 °C 34 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
6 Nov 29.5 °C 33 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
7 Nov 29.4 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
8 Nov 30.0 °C 25 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Nov 30.5 °C 27 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Nov 29.0 °C 33 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Nov 28.8 °C 33 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
12 Nov 25.4 °C 45 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
13 Nov 28.1 °C 32 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
14 Nov 27.8 °C 31 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
15 Nov 27.1 °C 34 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
16 Nov 27.1 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
17 Nov 27.2 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
18 Nov 27.5 °C 30 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
19 Nov 27.5 °C 31 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
20 Nov 27.5 °C 35 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
21 Nov after 28.6 °C 31 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
22 Nov after 28.8 °C 32 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
23 Nov after 26.4 °C 37 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
24 Nov after 26.6 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
25 Nov after 28.1 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
26 Nov after 27.7 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Nov after 28.1 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 Nov after 27.7 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Nov after 27.4 °C 31 % 13 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
30 Nov after 26.3 °C 41 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 27

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Oct 2016
After · 27 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 · 774Every 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 Moga fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 October 2016 to 20 November 2016 (26 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 November 2016 to 15 November 2016.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 8,542 hectares (85.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Dharamkot (4,997 ha, 8.9 %); Moga (2,475 ha, 3.8 %); Jagraon (1,096 ha, 1.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.5 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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: 15 November 2016 → 20 November 2016.
  2. Start date: 2 November 2016 → 26 October 2016.

RSS Changes to this page

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.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 2 November 2016 to 15 November 2016. 774 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.

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.