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Hakha fire, March 2018 Hakha

Out · last detection 14 Mar 2018, 20:02 UTC

The fire started on 6 March 2018 in Hakha, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,589 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 60th largest in Chin since 2016 (of 244 with a page). Number 5 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2018, of 42.

The power measured by the satellite is low (16.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
4,589ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
6 Mar 2018 – 13 Mar 2018
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
6 Mar
2018
Heat detections
261
in a single hotspot: 16 MW
Danger at start
21
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
482MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Mar 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Mar13 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

67891011121314

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
34km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 38 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

38% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 607 ha in 2016, 1,130 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Hakha where it started
    4,608 ha reached on 3 Mar
    1.1 %

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)
6 Mar 33.6 °C 33 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
7 Mar 33.0 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
8 Mar 31.2 °C 40 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
9 Mar 31.8 °C 37 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
10 Mar 32.9 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
11 Mar 32.3 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
12 Mar 31.9 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
13 Mar 30.4 °C 31 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
14 Mar after 31.5 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
15 Mar after 33.1 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
16 Mar after 31.8 °C 38 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
17 Mar after 28.6 °C 46 % 23 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 16
18 Mar after 32.6 °C 34 % 29 km/h 0.4 mm High 23
19 Mar after 32.6 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
20 Mar after 32.2 °C 39 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
21 Mar after 32.8 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
22 Mar after 33.2 °C 38 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
23 Mar after 34.1 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Feb 2018
After · 20 Mar 2018

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 · 261Every 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 Myanmar (Burma) ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Hakha fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 March 2018 and 13 March 2018: 8 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 4,589 hectares (45.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Hakha (4,608 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.6 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Myanmar (Burma) (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

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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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.