Rapti Sonari fire, April 2022 Rapti Sonari, Kalimati, Dangisharan
The fire started on 13 April 2022 in Rapti Sonari, Nepal, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 26,185 hectares from heat detections, spread across 5 municipalities.
It is the 4th largest in Lumbini since 2016 (of 47 with a page). The largest in Nepal in 2022, of 11.
The power measured by the satellite is low (23.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 26,185ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 21days
- 13 Apr 2022 – 3 May 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 5
- municipalities
- Started on
- 13 Apr
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 1,199
- in a single hotspot: 23 MW
- Danger at start
- 30
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 191MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.2 mm on 5 May.
This area had burned before
99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 21,813 ha in 2016, 18,996 ha in 2017, 3,212 ha in 2018, 22,374 ha in 2019, 20,609 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 25,809 ha that had burned before.
- 17,945 ha Rapti Sonari fire, March 2016 43,780 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 16,420 ha Rapti Sonari fire, April 2017 36,223 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 12,860 ha Rapti Sonari fire, April 2019 26,744 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 9,789 ha Babai fire, March 2021 19,256 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,751 ha Rapti Sonari fire, April 2019 3,535 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,730 ha Dangisharan fire, April 2019 2,799 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
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
-
Rapti Sonari where it started23,576 ha reached on 13 Apr23 %
-
2,079 ha reached on 14 Apr4.1 %
-
290 ha reached on 17 Apr2.6 %
-
199 ha reached on 17 Apr1.0 %
-
144 ha reached on 14 Apr0.8 %
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 2020Inside the perimeter there were about 1.9 hectares of built-up land and about 350 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 Apr | 36.7 °C | 40 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 14 Apr | 37.3 °C | 22 % | 46 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 41 |
| 15 Apr | 36.8 °C | 17 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 16 Apr | 37.7 °C | 17 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 17 Apr | 37.4 °C | 19 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 18 Apr | 38.6 °C | 21 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 19 Apr | 36.6 °C | 37 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 20 Apr | 36.7 °C | 36 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 21 Apr | 35.2 °C | 42 % | 37 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 33 |
| 22 Apr | 36.4 °C | 25 % | 46 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 42 |
| 23 Apr | 36.8 °C | 21 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 24 Apr | 37.3 °C | 16 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 25 Apr | 37.4 °C | 22 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 26 Apr | 38.4 °C | 22 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 27 Apr | 37.6 °C | 22 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 28 Apr | 37.3 °C | 31 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 29 Apr | 37.9 °C | 37 % | 39 km/h | 0.9 mm | High 31 |
| 30 Apr | 35.8 °C | 41 % | 37 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 30 |
| 1 May | 34.7 °C | 42 % | 30 km/h | 0.8 mm | High 24 |
| 2 May | 33.7 °C | 50 % | 32 km/h | 13.8 mm | Very low 4 |
| 3 May | 33.9 °C | 50 % | 26 km/h | 0.4 mm | Low 10 |
| 4 May after | 34.0 °C | 51 % | 36 km/h | 0.8 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 5 May after | 32.5 °C | 52 % | 35 km/h | 11.2 mm | Very low 3 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 1,199Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 26,744 haRapti Sonari16 April 2019 · 28 days · 3 km away
- 17,411 haKalimatiApril 2026 · 19 days · 15 km away
- 19,256 haBabaiMarch 2021 · 31 days · 17 km away
- 36,223 haRapti SonariApril 2017 · 22 days · 18 km away
- 43,780 haRapti SonariMarch 2016 · 28 days · 21 km away
- 17,821 haBardiya National ParkMarch 2021 · 23 days · 23 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Rapti Sonari fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 13 April 2022 to 3 May 2022 (21 days). The perimeter dates it from 13 April 2022 to 29 April 2022.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 26,185 hectares (261.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 5 municipalities: Rapti Sonari (23,576 ha, 23 %); Kalimati (2,079 ha, 4.1 %); Dangisharan (290 ha, 2.6 %); Babai (199 ha, 1.0 %); Kohalpur (144 ha, 0.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, class Extreme.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Nepal (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: 101 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 29 April 2022 → 3 May 2022.
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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 13 April 2022 to 29 April 2022. 1,199 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 (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License). 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.