How long did the Hakha fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 February 2026 and 13 February 2026: 9 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 4,423 hectares (44.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Hakha (3,385 ha, 0.8 %); Gangaw (1,054 ha, 0.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 30.3 °C, humidity dropped to 38 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 18, class Moderate.

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.

MM · Myanmar (Burma) · 2026-02-05 → 2026-02-13

Hakha fire, 5 February 2026 Hakha, Gangaw

Out · last detection 14 Feb 2026, 19:06 UTC

The fire started on 5 February 2026 in Hakha, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,423 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 64th largest in Chin since 2016 (of 244 with a page). Number 134 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2026, of 418.

The power measured by the satellite is low (14.0 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: 4,423ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 9days; 5 Feb 2026 – 13 Feb 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 5 Feb; 2026
Heat detections: 92; in a single hotspot: 14 MW
Danger at start: 13; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 206MW; sum of detected power

Play back 14 Feb 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Feb13 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

567891011121314

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

The weather it burned in

30°high

30km/h · peak gust

38%lowest humidity

It had gone 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,386 ha in 2016, 1,439 ha in 2017, 512 ha in 2019, 1,147 ha in 2021, 2,098 ha in 2022, 1,601 ha in 2023, 386 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,636 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Hakha where it started

3,385 ha reached on 5 Feb

0.8 %
Gangaw

1,054 ha reached on 6 Feb

0.4 %

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)
5 Feb	29.7 °C	45 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
6 Feb	28.4 °C	51 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
7 Feb	29.2 °C	48 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
8 Feb	29.2 °C	49 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
9 Feb	29.0 °C	45 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
10 Feb	30.3 °C	38 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
11 Feb	30.2 °C	42 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
12 Feb	29.8 °C	41 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
13 Feb	29.8 °C	39 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
14 Feb after	30.3 °C	34 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
15 Feb after	30.6 °C	42 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
16 Feb after	30.6 °C	38 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
17 Feb after	30.6 °C	40 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
18 Feb after	31.8 °C	36 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
19 Feb after	32.3 °C	39 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 21
20 Feb after	32.5 °C	46 %	31 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 20
21 Feb after	33.4 °C	34 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
22 Feb after	32.7 °C	30 %	32 km/h	0.3 mm	High 24
23 Feb after	31.4 °C	34 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 29 Jan 2026

After · 20 Feb 2026

Before After

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 · Copernicus

On 8 February 2026 the air beside the fire reached 30 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak30 µg/m³

Days over the guideline9 days

PM1032 µg/m³

Optical depth0.40

WHO 15

345678910111213141516

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 92Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Myanmar (Burma) ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Hakha fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 February 2026 and 13 February 2026: 9 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 4,423 hectares (44.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Hakha (3,385 ha, 0.8 %); Gangaw (1,054 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 30.3 °C, humidity dropped to 38 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 18, class Moderate.
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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

Where it burned