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Hsipaw fire, 20 January 2021 Hsipaw

Out · last detection 1 Feb 2021, 06:12 UTC

The fire started on 20 January 2021 in Hsipaw, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,687 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 219th largest in Shan since 2016 (of 723 with a page). Number 49 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2021, of 159.

The power measured by the satellite is low (26.5 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
3,687ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
20 Jan 2021 – 1 Feb 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
20 Jan
2021
Heat detections
157
in a single hotspot: 26 MW
Danger at start
19
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
964MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Feb 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Jan1 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

2021222324252627282930311

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
36km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.4 mm on 7 Feb.

This area had burned before

85% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,346 ha in 2017, 718 ha in 2018, 2,818 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,131 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Hsipaw where it started
    3,702 ha reached on 15 Jan
    0.7 %

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)
20 Jan 24.8 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
21 Jan 24.3 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
22 Jan 25.0 °C 40 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
23 Jan 25.4 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
24 Jan 26.5 °C 37 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
25 Jan 27.1 °C 36 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
26 Jan 28.2 °C 37 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
27 Jan 28.1 °C 32 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
28 Jan 28.8 °C 30 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
29 Jan 29.2 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
30 Jan 28.0 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
31 Jan 27.6 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
1 Feb 28.5 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
2 Feb after 27.5 °C 24 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
3 Feb after 28.4 °C 29 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
4 Feb after 28.5 °C 25 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
5 Feb after 28.1 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
6 Feb after 28.3 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
7 Feb after 24.4 °C 52 % 30 km/h 4.4 mm Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Jan 2021
After · 8 Feb 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 · 157Every 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 Hsipaw fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 January 2021 and 1 February 2021: 13 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 3,687 hectares (36.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Hsipaw (3,702 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.2 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 36 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.