Dawei fire, 31 March 2026 Dawei
The fire started on 31 March 2026 in Dawei, Myanmar, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,493 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 2th largest in Tanitharyi since 2016 (of 75 with a page). Number 33 in Myanmar in 2026, of 480.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Dawei · 2020Dawei · 2019Dawei · 2021Dawei · 2016
- Burnt area
- 12,493ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 23days
- 31 Mar 2026 – 22 Apr 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 31 Mar
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 311
- in a single hotspot: 0 MW
- Average daily power
- 56MW
- 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.
This area had burned before
92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,956 ha in 2016, 7,206 ha in 2019, 8,408 ha in 2020, 3,387 ha in 2021, 4,911 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 11,543 ha that had burned before.
- 6,887 ha Dawei fire, March 2020 12,427 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,572 ha Dawei fire, March 2019 5,650 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,387 ha Dawei fire, February 2021 3,648 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,890 ha Dawei fire, February 2016 3,120 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 876 ha Dawei fire, February 2016 4,941 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 290 ha Dawei fire, February 2020 5,366 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 25 ha Dawei fire, February 2016 2,814 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
-
Dawei where it started12,557 ha1.8 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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
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 · 0Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 5,650 haDawei4 March 2019 · 12 days · 4 km away
- 12,427 haDawei2 March 2020 · 13 days · 6 km away
- 5,366 haDawei16 February 2020 · 11 days · 7 km away
- 6,201 haDawei2 April 2026 · 21 days · 20 km away
- 6,722 haDawei22 March 2020 · 14 days · 24 km away
- 6,432 haSuan Phueng สวนผึ้ง2 April 2026 · 17 days · 26 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Dawei fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 31 March 2026 and 22 April 2026: 23 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 12,493 hectares (124.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Dawei (12,557 ha, 1.8 %).
- 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 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.