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Hakha fire, 22 February 2021 Hakha

Out · last detection 6 Mar 2021, 20:02 UTC

The fire started on 22 February 2021 in Hakha, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,588 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 16th largest in Chin since 2016 (of 244 with a page). Number 8 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2021, of 159.

Burnt area
12,588ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
22 Feb 2021 – 5 Mar 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
22 Feb
2021
Heat detections
721
in a single hotspot: 88 MW
Danger at start
15
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
2.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Mar 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Feb5 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

22232425262728123456

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
35km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone 29 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

79% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,050 ha in 2016, 5,028 ha in 2017, 2,179 ha in 2018, 1,689 ha in 2019, 3,246 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,928 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Hakha where it started
    12,630 ha reached on 15 Feb
    2.9 %

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 29.8 °C 47 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
23 Feb 31.8 °C 46 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
24 Feb 32.8 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
25 Feb 32.8 °C 35 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
26 Feb 32.9 °C 32 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
27 Feb 32.6 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
28 Feb 33.5 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
1 Mar 33.6 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
2 Mar 34.0 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
3 Mar 33.3 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
4 Mar 33.5 °C 26 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
5 Mar 33.7 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
6 Mar after 33.4 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
7 Mar after 32.7 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
8 Mar after 32.2 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
9 Mar after 33.4 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
10 Mar after 33.1 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
11 Mar after 33.3 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
12 Mar after 34.1 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
13 Mar after 34.5 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Mar after 35.8 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
15 Mar after 33.9 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 31

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Feb 2021
After · 12 Mar 2021

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 · 721Every 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 22 February 2021 and 5 March 2021: 12 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 12,588 hectares (125.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Hakha (12,630 ha, 2.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.0 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 27, 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.