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Wajedu fire, March 2026 Wajedu, Usur, Venkatapuram

Out · last detection 17 Mar 2026, 19:26 UTC

The fire started on 1 March 2026 in Wajedu, India, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 36,286 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in Telangāna since 2016 (of 16 with a page). Number 5 in India in 2026, of 65.

Burnt area
36,286ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
17days
1 Mar 2026 – 17 Mar 2026
Municipalities hit
4
subdistricts
Started on
1 Mar
2026
Heat detections
764
in a single hotspot: 145 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
5.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Mar 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Mar17 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

134567891314151617

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
45km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 10,059 ha in 2016, 11,416 ha in 2017, 2,471 ha in 2018, 11,497 ha in 2019, 7,403 ha in 2020, 16,441 ha in 2021, 15,763 ha in 2022, 9,566 ha in 2023, 6,237 ha in 2024, 8,835 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 32,407 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Wajedu where it started
    16,796 ha reached on 27 Feb
    31 %
  2. Usur
    9,433 ha reached on 26 Feb
    4.0 %
  3. Venkatapuram
    8,953 ha reached on 26 Feb
    13 %
  4. Bhopalpattnam
    1,311 ha reached on 6 Mar
    0.6 %

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)
22 Feb 33.5 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Feb 32.6 °C 34 % 45 km/h 8.7 mm Low 8
24 Feb 30.6 °C 39 % 27 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 15
25 Feb 31.5 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
26 Feb 33.3 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Feb 33.5 °C 25 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
28 Feb 33.9 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
1 Mar 33.5 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
2 Mar 34.6 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
3 Mar 35.4 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 Mar 35.7 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Mar 36.8 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
6 Mar 37.5 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Mar 36.9 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Mar 35.3 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
9 Mar 35.2 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
10 Mar 34.1 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Mar 35.5 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Mar 37.0 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Mar 37.0 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
14 Mar 36.2 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
15 Mar 33.8 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Mar 33.2 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 40
17 Mar 32.7 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.4 mm High 37
18 Mar after 30.4 °C 38 % 33 km/h 3.5 mm Low 9
19 Mar after 31.1 °C 38 % 33 km/h 5.4 mm Very low 5
20 Mar after 30.3 °C 40 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 14
21 Mar after 32.2 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.4 mm High 23
22 Mar after 32.1 °C 34 % 26 km/h 0.6 mm High 22
23 Mar after 34.3 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
24 Mar after 34.7 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Mar after 34.7 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Mar after 35.8 °C 29 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Mar after 36.3 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 Mar after 36.4 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Mar after 36.8 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Mar after 36.0 °C 30 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Mar after 34.8 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Apr after 35.4 °C 31 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
2 Apr after 34.6 °C 34 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 Apr after 35.2 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Feb 2026
After · 24 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 18 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 98 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 55: 3.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak98 µg/m³
Days over the guideline22 days
PM10111 µg/m³
Optical depth1.52
27281234567891011121314151617181920
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 · 764Every 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 Wajedu fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 March 2026 and 17 March 2026: 17 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 36,286 hectares (362.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Wajedu (16,796 ha, 31 %); Usur (9,433 ha, 4.0 %); Venkatapuram (8,953 ha, 13 %); Bhopalpattnam (1,311 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.