Hpruso fire, February 2021 Hpruso
The fire started on 26 February 2021 in Hpruso, Myanmar, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,615 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 142th largest in Kayah since 2016 (of 209 with a page). Number 110 in Myanmar in 2021, of 190.
The power measured by the satellite is low (18.8 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Hpruso · 2020Hpruso · 2019Hpruso · 2016Hpruso · 2017
- Burnt area
- 2,615ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 11days
- 26 Feb 2021 – 8 Mar 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 26 Feb
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 96
- in a single hotspot: 19 MW
- Danger at start
- 27
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 31MW
- detected power per day, on average
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.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
71% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 539 ha in 2016, 438 ha in 2017, 1,315 ha in 2018, 1,155 ha in 2019, 1,278 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,867 ha that had burned before.
- 1,278 ha Hpruso fire, March 2020 5,126 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,155 ha Hpruso fire, March 2019 2,588 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 539 ha Hpruso fire, March 2016 2,652 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 112 ha Hpruso fire, March 2017 3,638 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 33 ha Hpruso fire, March 2018 3,291 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Hpruso where it started2,627 ha reached on 26 Feb1.6 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Mar | 32.6 °C | 29 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 4 Mar | 31.8 °C | 22 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 5 Mar | 32.8 °C | 12 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 6 Mar | 32.1 °C | 17 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 7 Mar | 32.9 °C | 22 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 8 Mar | 33.0 °C | 24 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 9 Mar after | 33.7 °C | 24 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 10 Mar after | 33.0 °C | 29 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 11 Mar after | 33.2 °C | 32 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 12 Mar after | 33.6 °C | 30 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 13 Mar after | 35.3 °C | 26 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 14 Mar after | 33.5 °C | 34 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 15 Mar after | 34.3 °C | 27 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 16 Mar after | 34.9 °C | 27 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 17 Mar after | 35.1 °C | 26 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 18 Mar after | 35.3 °C | 24 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
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.
Detections table · 96Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Hpruso fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 February 2021 to 8 March 2021 (11 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 March 2021 to 8 March 2021.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,615 hectares (26.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Hpruso (2,627 ha, 1.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class High.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Myanmar (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
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 3 March 2021 → 26 February 2021.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 3 March 2021 to 8 March 2021. 96 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.