Bawlake fire, 22 February 2021 Bawlake, Mese
The fire started on 22 February 2021 in Bawlake, Myanmar, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 21,859 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 9th largest in Kayah since 2016 (of 209 with a page). Number 4 in Myanmar in 2021, of 190.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 21,859ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 24days
- 22 Feb 2021 – 17 Mar 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 22 Feb
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 1,090
- in a single hotspot: 142 MW
- Danger at start
- 17
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 194MW
- 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 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
78% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,936 ha in 2016, 6,505 ha in 2017, 6,469 ha in 2018, 7,863 ha in 2019, 15,448 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 17,016 ha that had burned before.
- 3,545 ha Bawlake fire, March 2018 13,125 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,822 ha Bawlake fire, March 2016 7,288 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,458 ha Bawlake fire, March 2019 3,443 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 655 ha Mese fire, March 2017 3,142 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 577 ha Bawlake fire, March 2019 2,013 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 457 ha Mese fire, March 2016 14,694 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 13 ha Bawlake fire, February 2016 2,885 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
-
Bawlake where it started20,330 ha reached on 22 Feb10 %
-
1,647 ha reached on 22 Feb0.9 %
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 was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 Feb | 32.3 °C | 37 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 23 Feb | 33.1 °C | 40 % | 20 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 24 Feb | 33.8 °C | 36 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 21 |
| 25 Feb | 33.8 °C | 27 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 26 Feb | 33.4 °C | 29 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 27 Feb | 31.9 °C | 31 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 28 Feb | 33.3 °C | 30 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 1 Mar | 33.9 °C | 30 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 2 Mar | 34.4 °C | 25 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 3 Mar | 35.2 °C | 29 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 4 Mar | 34.8 °C | 24 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 5 Mar | 34.8 °C | 18 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 6 Mar | 34.3 °C | 18 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 7 Mar | 34.7 °C | 22 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 8 Mar | 34.7 °C | 25 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 9 Mar | 34.9 °C | 23 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 10 Mar | 34.4 °C | 26 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 11 Mar | 34.2 °C | 30 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 12 Mar | 34.8 °C | 28 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 13 Mar | 35.9 °C | 24 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 14 Mar | 34.6 °C | 35 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 15 Mar | 35.8 °C | 30 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 16 Mar | 36.3 °C | 28 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 17 Mar | 36.8 °C | 28 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 18 Mar after | 37.1 °C | 26 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 19 Mar after | 37.8 °C | 29 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 20 Mar after | 38.3 °C | 26 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 21 Mar after | 38.4 °C | 27 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 22 Mar after | 38.4 °C | 20 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 23 Mar after | 33.7 °C | 43 % | 28 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 30 |
| 24 Mar after | 35.9 °C | 32 % | 25 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 29 |
| 25 Mar after | 38.3 °C | 27 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 26 Mar after | 36.4 °C | 33 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 27 Mar after | 37.4 °C | 33 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
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 · 1,090Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 36,428 haMese17 February 2024 · 37 days · 12 km away
- 21,189 haMese7 March 2025 · 25 days · 16 km away
- 110,593 haMese15 March 2026 · 41 days · 17 km away
- 25,277 haBawlake25 February 2021 · 26 days · 24 km away
- 32,496 haHpasawng13 March 2026 · 34 days · 28 km away
- 133,850 haMueang Mae Hong Son เมืองแม่ฮ่องสอน17 March 2026 · 39 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Bawlake fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 22 February 2021 to 17 March 2021 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 February 2021 to 10 March 2021.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 21,859 hectares (218.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bawlake (20,330 ha, 10 %); Mese (1,647 ha, 0.9 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, class High.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Myanmar (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.
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 10 March 2021 → 17 March 2021.
- Start date: 25 February 2021 → 22 February 2021.
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; 4 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 25 February 2021 to 10 March 2021. 1,090 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 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)). 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.