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MM · Myanmar (Burma) · →

Hakha fire, 22 March 2021 Hakha

Out · last detection 27 Mar 2021, 07:40 UTC

The fire started on 22 March 2021 in Hakha, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,221 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 110th largest in Chin since 2016 (of 244 with a page). Number 60 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2021, of 159.

Burnt area
3,221ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
22 Mar 2021 – 26 Mar 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
22 Mar
2021
Heat detections
118
in a single hotspot: 40 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Energy released
805MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Mar 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Mar26 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

222324252627

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
41km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 57 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 5 Apr.

This area had burned before

43% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 12 ha in 2019, 1,384 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Hakha where it started
    3,241 ha reached on 17 Mar
    0.8 %

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 Mar 30.5 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
23 Mar 32.0 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
24 Mar 31.2 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
25 Mar 31.7 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
26 Mar 31.2 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Mar after 31.3 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
28 Mar after 28.1 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
29 Mar after 29.0 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
30 Mar after 28.4 °C 33 % 64 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 38
31 Mar after 29.9 °C 31 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Apr after 31.5 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
2 Apr after 32.5 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
3 Apr after 33.0 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 Apr after 30.1 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Apr after 27.3 °C 27 % 28 km/h 1.4 mm Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Mar 2021
After · 2 Apr 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 · 118Every 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 March 2021 and 26 March 2021: 5 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 3,221 hectares (32.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Hakha (3,241 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.0 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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.