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Timarni fire, March 2016 Timarni, Rehatgaon, Harda

Out · last detection 29 Mar 2016, 20:10 UTC

The fire started on 19 March 2016 in Timarni, India, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,188 hectares from heat detections, spread across 5 municipalities.

It is the 33th largest in Madhya Pradesh since 2016 (of 60 with a page). Number 20 in India in 2016, of 47.

Burnt area
8,188ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
19 Mar 2016 – 28 Mar 2016
Municipalities hit
5
subdistricts
Started on
19 Mar
2016
Heat detections
414
in a single hotspot: 95 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Mar 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Mar28 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

20212223242526272829

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

The weather it burned in

42°high
37km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 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.

What happened to each town

  1. Timarni where it started
    7,988 ha reached on 18 Mar
    22 %
  2. Rehatgaon
    155 ha reached on 18 Mar
    0.1 %
  3. Harda
    74 ha reached on 22 Mar
    0.2 %
  4. Seoni-Malwa
    9 ha reached on 26 Mar
    0.0 %
  5. Handiya
    0 ha
    0.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre 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)
18 Mar 37.1 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Mar 36.6 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Mar 37.0 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Mar 36.9 °C 16 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Mar 36.3 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Mar 37.0 °C 10 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
24 Mar 39.2 °C 10 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Mar 40.1 °C 12 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
26 Mar 40.5 °C 14 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
27 Mar 36.3 °C 25 % 26 km/h 3.9 mm Moderate 20
28 Mar 37.8 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Mar after 38.8 °C 14 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Mar after 39.4 °C 13 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Mar after 39.5 °C 12 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
1 Apr after 39.7 °C 16 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
2 Apr after 41.1 °C 16 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Apr after 42.1 °C 17 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
4 Apr after 41.0 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 48
5 Apr after 38.2 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
6 Apr after 38.6 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
7 Apr after 38.3 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 48
8 Apr after 38.7 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
9 Apr after 39.3 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 Apr after 40.2 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
11 Apr after 39.4 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
12 Apr after 39.1 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
13 Apr after 39.4 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Mar 2016
After · 4 Apr 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 · 414Every 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 Timarni fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 March 2016 and 28 March 2016: 10 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 8,188 hectares (81.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 5 municipalities: Timarni (7,988 ha, 22 %); Rehatgaon (155 ha, 0.1 %); Harda (74 ha, 0.2 %); Seoni-Malwa (9 ha, 0.0 %); Handiya (0 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 42.1 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, class Extreme.
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

Satellite cross-check

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.

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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.

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.