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Usur fire, March 2026 Venkatapuram, Usur, Cherla

Out · last detection 22 Mar 2026, 07:02 UTC

The fire started on 7 March 2026 in Usur, India, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,149 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 13th largest in Chhattīsgarh since 2016 (of 37 with a page). Number 28 in India in 2026, of 65.

Burnt area
8,149ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
7 Mar 2026 – 22 Mar 2026
Municipalities hit
3
subdistricts
Started on
7 Mar
2026
Heat detections
130
in a single hotspot: 40 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
446MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

22 Mar 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Mar22 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

813141517192022

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
35km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 4 Apr.

This area had burned before

89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,621 ha in 2016, 3,244 ha in 2017, 331 ha in 2018, 1,462 ha in 2019, 1,627 ha in 2020, 4,166 ha in 2021, 4,484 ha in 2022, 2,099 ha in 2023, 1,508 ha in 2024, 3,503 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,264 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Venkatapuram
    4,369 ha reached on 13 Mar
    6.4 %
  2. Usur where it started
    3,805 ha reached on 3 Mar
    1.6 %
  3. Cherla
    14 ha reached on 13 Mar
    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)
3 Mar 36.2 °C 25 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Mar 35.7 °C 30 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
5 Mar 37.3 °C 21 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Mar 38.8 °C 18 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Mar 37.1 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Mar 35.3 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Mar 34.8 °C 39 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
10 Mar 34.4 °C 39 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
11 Mar 36.5 °C 27 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
12 Mar 37.6 °C 23 % 14 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
13 Mar 37.3 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
14 Mar 36.8 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Mar 35.8 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Mar 33.1 °C 40 % 31 km/h 1.1 mm High 22
17 Mar 33.8 °C 43 % 30 km/h 1.8 mm Moderate 15
18 Mar 31.9 °C 40 % 27 km/h 0.4 mm High 23
19 Mar 32.7 °C 40 % 27 km/h 1.7 mm Moderate 12
20 Mar 32.3 °C 44 % 23 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 20
21 Mar 32.9 °C 41 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
22 Mar 33.7 °C 41 % 18 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
23 Mar after 35.6 °C 30 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Mar after 35.1 °C 36 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Mar after 35.2 °C 40 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
26 Mar after 36.4 °C 37 % 20 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
27 Mar after 37.5 °C 34 % 26 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
28 Mar after 38.2 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
29 Mar after 38.7 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Mar after 37.5 °C 39 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
31 Mar after 35.2 °C 38 % 22 km/h 0.9 mm High 26
1 Apr after 36.5 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
2 Apr after 35.8 °C 39 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
3 Apr after 36.6 °C 42 % 20 km/h 0.5 mm High 27
4 Apr after 35.9 °C 40 % 22 km/h 1.1 mm High 21

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Feb 2026
After · 29 Mar 2026

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 12 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 119 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 57: 3.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak119 µg/m³
Days over the guideline21 days
PM10142 µg/m³
Optical depth1.54
5678910111213141516171819202122232425
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)

Detections table · 130Every 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 Usur fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 March 2026 and 22 March 2026: 16 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 8,149 hectares (81.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Venkatapuram (4,369 ha, 6.4 %); Usur (3,805 ha, 1.6 %); Cherla (14 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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

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.

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.

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.