Hakha fire, March 2024 Hakha
The fire started on 2 March 2024 in Hakha, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,340 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 188th largest in Chin since 2016 (of 244 with a page). Number 116 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2024, of 161.
The power measured by the satellite is low (19.8 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
- 2,340ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 11days
- 2 Mar 2024 – 12 Mar 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 2 Mar
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 109
- in a single hotspot: 20 MW
- Energy released
- 253MW
- sum of detected power
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
93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 137 ha in 2016, 1,611 ha in 2017, 869 ha in 2018, 674 ha in 2019, 1 ha in 2020, 1,067 ha in 2021, 505 ha in 2022, 414 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,169 ha that had burned before.
- 1,486 ha Gangaw fire, February 2017 7,940 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 990 ha Hakha fire, February 2021 4,752 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 194 ha Hakha fire, March 2018 4,589 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 77 ha Hakha fire, February 2021 12,588 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 38 ha Hakha fire, March 2022 2,790 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Hakha where it started2,350 ha reached on 28 Feb0.6 %
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.
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 14 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 60 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 50: 3.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 109Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 7,940 haGangawFebruary 2017 · 15 days · 6 km away
- 11,026 haHakha21 February 2026 · 11 days · 13 km away
- 6,485 haHakhaFebruary 2023 · 8 days · 19 km away
- 12,588 haHakha22 February 2021 · 12 days · 23 km away
- 12,329 haHakha7 April 2023 · 15 days · 26 km away
- 13,643 haGangawJanuary 2023 · 15 days · 30 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Hakha fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 March 2024 and 12 March 2024: 11 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 2,340 hectares (23.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Hakha (2,350 ha, 0.6 %).
- 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.
Report an error
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.