Burned area
satellite only7,867ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 3 Nov 2021 – 16 Nov 2021
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
IN · India · –
Nihal Singhwala fire, 3 November 2021 Nihal Singhwala, Rampura Phul, Bagha Purana
Out · last measured on 16 Nov 2021
The fire started on 3 November 2021 in Nihal Singhwala, India, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,867 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 18th largest in Punjab since 2016 (of 33 with a page). Number 32 in India in 2021, of 77.
Use this data
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Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only14days
3 Nov 2021 to 16 Nov 2021: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 3 Nov 2021 – 16 Nov 2021
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only3 Nov 2021
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 3 Nov 2021
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Danger at the start
model10.0FWI · low
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 9.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 3 Nov 2021, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model29.2°C · 36% RH
High of 29.2 °C and minimum humidity of 36% on 9 November 2021; gusts of 29 km/h on 6 November 2021.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 3 Nov 2021 – 16 Nov 2021
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
Living inside
model≈ 7,200people
Estimated residents inside the perimeter and 55 ha of built-up area (100 m grid, epoch 2020).
- Source
- GHSL R2023A · JRC
- Date
- calculated on 24 October 2026
+− cross-check
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.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
What was saved on 24 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 7,867 ha
- Dates
- 3 Nov 2021 – 16 Nov 2021
- Name
- Nihal Singhwala
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/nihal-singhwala-2021-11?v=2026-10-24A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire nihal-singhwala-2021-11.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-11-03 | 0 | 0 | 26.5 | 16.7 | 52 | 10.4 | 19.8 | 0 | 10 | bajo | 1 |
| 2021-11-04 | 0 | 0 | 28.3 | 13.9 | 39 | 8.1 | 15.8 | 0 | 10.2 | bajo | 1 |
| 2021-11-05 | 0 | 0 | 28.1 | 14.2 | 37 | 10.2 | 15.5 | 0 | 11.8 | moderado | 1 |
| 2021-11-06 | 0 | 0 | 28 | 14.5 | 40 | 14 | 29.2 | 0 | 13.6 | moderado | 1 |
| 2021-11-07 | 0 | 0 | 28.3 | 13.3 | 35 | 11.4 | 24.8 | 0 | 13.5 | moderado | 1 |
| 2021-11-08 | 0 | 0 | 28.5 | 12.4 | 36 | 13.7 | 26.6 | 0 | 14.8 | moderado | 1 |
| 2021-11-09 | 0 | 0 | 29.2 | 12.7 | 36 | 11.5 | 21.6 | 0 | 14.4 | moderado | 1 |
| 2021-11-10 | 0 | 0 | 28.9 | 13.9 | 39 | 8.9 | 16.6 | 0 | 13.7 | moderado | 1 |
| 2021-11-11 | 0 | 0 | 28.3 | 13.6 | 44 | 10.2 | 15.8 | 0 | 14.4 | moderado | 1 |
| 2021-11-12 | 0 | 0 | 28.3 | 13 | 37 | 10.5 | 21.2 | 0 | 14.9 | moderado | 1 |
| 2021-11-13 | 0 | 0 | 28 | 12.5 | 30 | 11.2 | 22.3 | 0 | 16.7 | moderado | 1 |
| 2021-11-14 | 0 | 0 | 27.5 | 12.7 | 34 | 8.8 | 15.5 | 0 | 16 | moderado | 1 |
| 2021-11-15 | 0 | 0 | 26.5 | 11.6 | 37 | 10.7 | 20.5 | 0 | 17.3 | moderado | 1 |
| 2021-11-16 | 0 | 0 | 26.2 | 10.4 | 31 | 10 | 19.8 | 0 | 17.3 | moderado | 1 |
| 2021-11-17 | 0 | 0 | 26.1 | 10.3 | 35 | 9.8 | 14 | 0 | 17.6 | moderado | 0 |
| 2021-11-18 | 0 | 0 | 25.5 | 10.6 | 37 | 8.4 | 18.7 | 0 | 16.9 | moderado | 0 |
| 2021-11-19 | 0 | 0 | 25.4 | 9.7 | 37 | 8.7 | 21.6 | 0 | 17.2 | moderado | 0 |
| 2021-11-20 | 0 | 0 | 25.5 | 9.4 | 37 | 10.2 | 18 | 0 | 18.2 | moderado | 0 |
| 2021-11-21 | 0 | 0 | 25.8 | 10.1 | 38 | 12.6 | 24.5 | 0 | 19.4 | moderado | 0 |
| 2021-11-22 | 0 | 0 | 26.2 | 9.6 | 27 | 15 | 30.2 | 0 | 22 | alto | 0 |
| 2021-11-23 | 0 | 0 | 26.6 | 9.9 | 35 | 9.5 | 23.4 | 0 | 19.3 | moderado | 0 |
| 2021-11-24 | 0 | 0 | 26.8 | 11 | 37 | 10.5 | 20.2 | 0 | 19.9 | moderado | 0 |
| 2021-11-25 | 0 | 0 | 26.3 | 12.7 | 44 | 10.4 | 21.2 | 0 | 17.9 | moderado | 0 |
| 2021-11-26 | 0 | 0 | 25.5 | 10.3 | 43 | 8 | 16.2 | 0 | 16.7 | moderado | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
We have the GWIS perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.
- Burnt area
- 7,867ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 14days
- 3 Nov 2021 – 16 Nov 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- subdistricts
- Started on
- 3 Nov
- 2021
- Danger at start
- 10
- Low · FWI index
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
29°high
29km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity
It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,721 ha in 2016, 3,086 ha in 2017, 601 ha in 2018, 2,709 ha in 2019, 5,462 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,227 ha that had burned before.
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
-
Nihal Singhwala where it started3,965 ha8.9 %
-
2,963 ha4.3 %
-
967 ha1.6 %
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 2020Built-up area55 ha
Residents≈ 7,200
Inside the perimeter there were about 55 hectares of built-up land and about 7,200 residents (GHSL 2020, 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Nov | 26.5 °C | 52 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 4 Nov | 28.3 °C | 39 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 5 Nov | 28.1 °C | 37 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 6 Nov | 28.0 °C | 40 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 7 Nov | 28.3 °C | 35 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 8 Nov | 28.5 °C | 36 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 9 Nov | 29.2 °C | 36 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 10 Nov | 28.9 °C | 39 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 11 Nov | 28.3 °C | 44 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 12 Nov | 28.3 °C | 37 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 13 Nov | 28.0 °C | 30 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 14 Nov | 27.5 °C | 34 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 15 Nov | 26.5 °C | 37 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 16 Nov | 26.2 °C | 31 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 17 Nov after | 26.1 °C | 35 % | 14 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 18 Nov after | 25.5 °C | 37 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 19 Nov after | 25.4 °C | 37 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 20 Nov after | 25.5 °C | 37 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 21 Nov after | 25.8 °C | 38 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 22 Nov after | 26.2 °C | 27 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 23 Nov after | 26.6 °C | 35 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 24 Nov after | 26.8 °C | 37 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 25 Nov after | 26.3 °C | 44 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 26 Nov after | 25.5 °C | 43 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 10.0, a minimum humidity of 52% and 9 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 1.
FWI at the start
10.0
Minimum humidity
52 %
Days without rain
9
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Nihal Singhwala fire, 3 November 2021
7,867 ha
14 days
FWI 10.0
Min. humidity 52 %
Fazilka fire, November 2017
5,259 ha
12 days
FWI 14.5
Min. humidity 47 %
100 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
What happened to them
Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 1. 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
29km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 16 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 2016.
- 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.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 27 Oct 2021
After · 23 Nov 2021
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Nihal Singhwala fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 November 2021 and 16 November 2021: 14 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 7,867 hectares (78.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Nihal Singhwala (3,965 ha, 8.9 %); Rampura Phul (2,963 ha, 4.3 %); Bagha Purana (967 ha, 1.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 29.2 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 29 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 17, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings
Satellite cross-check
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.