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Ramnagar fire, April 2023 Ramnagar, Gaunaha

Out · last measured on 13 Apr 2023

The fire started on 3 April 2023 in Ramnagar, India, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,870 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 3th largest in Bihār since 2016 (of 11 with a page). Number 3 in India in 2023, of 22.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ramnagar · 2021Gaunaha · 2021Sidhaw · 2016Gaunaha · 2023

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
11,870ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
3 Apr 2023 – 13 Apr 2023
Municipalities hit
2
subdistricts
Started on
3 Apr
2023
Danger at start
15
Moderate · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

39°high
47km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 10,961 ha in 2016, 1,666 ha in 2017, 3,464 ha in 2018, 5,037 ha in 2019, 10,780 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 11,488 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 7.5% of the area of London (119 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. Ramnagar where it started
    6,372 ha
    9.0 %
  2. Gaunaha
    4,277 ha
    8.3 %

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 2025
Built-up area0.23 ha
Residents≈ 80

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.23 hectares of built-up land and about 80 residents (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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 Apr 31.0 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
4 Apr 32.8 °C 30 % 46 km/h 0.7 mm High 22
5 Apr 33.2 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
6 Apr 34.9 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
7 Apr 35.5 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
8 Apr 35.2 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
9 Apr 36.6 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
10 Apr 36.5 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Apr 36.8 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
12 Apr 37.9 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Apr 38.7 °C 13 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
14 Apr after 38.3 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
15 Apr after 37.2 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
16 Apr after 39.8 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
17 Apr after 40.4 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
18 Apr after 41.1 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
19 Apr after 40.9 °C 16 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
20 Apr after 40.1 °C 13 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
21 Apr after 36.4 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 48
22 Apr after 36.8 °C 17 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Apr after 36.3 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Mar 2023
After · 20 Apr 2023

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 11 April 2023 the air beside the fire reached 98 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 49: 3.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak98 µg/m³
Days over the guideline16 days
PM10140 µg/m³
Optical depth1.32
12345678910111213141516
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in India ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ramnagar fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 April 2023 and 13 April 2023: 11 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 11,870 hectares (118.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ramnagar (6,372 ha, 9.0 %); Gaunaha (4,277 ha, 8.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.7 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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 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

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
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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 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 2025, 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.