How long did the Kanbalu fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 20 February 2024 to 18 March 2024 (28 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 February 2024 to 11 March 2024.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,563 hectares (65.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kanbalu (4,708 ha, 1.2 %); Thabeikkyin (1,887 ha, 0.7 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, class Very 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.

MM · Myanmar · 2024-02-20 → 2024-03-18

Kanbalu fire, February 2024 Kanbalu, Thabeikkyin

Out · last detection 18 Mar 2024, 06:19 UTC

The fire started on 20 February 2024 in Kanbalu, Myanmar, and satellites saw it burning for 28 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,563 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 6th largest in Saigang since 2016 (of 100 with a page). Number 24 in Myanmar in 2024, of 174.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Kanbalu · 2023 Thabeikkyin · 2024 Mabein · 2024

Burnt area: 6,563ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 28days; 20 Feb 2024 – 18 Mar 2024
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 20 Feb; 2024
Heat detections: 253; in a single hotspot: 69 MW
Danger at start: 24; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 56MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Feb18 Mar

Play back 18 Mar 2024

How it evolved, day by day

20 Feb 24 Feb 28 Feb 3 Mar 7 Mar 11 Mar 18 Mar

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

The weather it burned in

36°high

38km/h · peak gust

16%lowest humidity

It had gone 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.2 mm on 21 Mar.

This area had burned before

44% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,481 ha in 2017, 2,180 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,871 ha that had burned before.

463 ha Kanbalu fire, February 2023 2,199 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 4.1% of the area of London (66 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Kanbalu where it started

4,708 ha reached on 20 Feb

1.2 %
Thabeikkyin

1,887 ha reached on 24 Feb

0.7 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025

Built-up area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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 Feb	31.5 °C	34 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
21 Feb	32.2 °C	32 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
22 Feb	32.6 °C	34 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
23 Feb	31.3 °C	40 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
24 Feb	30.0 °C	39 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
25 Feb	31.6 °C	36 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
26 Feb	32.2 °C	37 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
27 Feb	32.9 °C	34 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
28 Feb	33.1 °C	32 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
29 Feb	33.0 °C	30 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
1 Mar	33.2 °C	31 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
2 Mar	33.9 °C	32 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
3 Mar	34.2 °C	32 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
4 Mar	34.6 °C	34 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
5 Mar	34.8 °C	29 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
6 Mar	34.4 °C	16 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
7 Mar	34.6 °C	21 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
8 Mar	35.4 °C	24 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
9 Mar	34.4 °C	26 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
10 Mar	35.0 °C	26 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
11 Mar	35.2 °C	27 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
12 Mar	34.8 °C	30 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
13 Mar	35.5 °C	27 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
14 Mar	35.5 °C	27 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
15 Mar	35.4 °C	30 %	16 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
16 Mar	35.8 °C	24 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
17 Mar	35.5 °C	23 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
18 Mar	36.3 °C	30 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
19 Mar after	36.8 °C	33 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
20 Mar after	36.4 °C	31 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
21 Mar after	32.7 °C	41 %	34 km/h	2.2 mm	Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 13 Feb 2024

After · 25 Mar 2024

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 10 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 69 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 49: 3.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak69 µg/m³

Days over the guideline19 days

PM1099 µg/m³

Optical depth1.02

WHO 15

25262728291234567891011121314

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 · 253Every 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 ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kanbalu fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 20 February 2024 to 18 March 2024 (28 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 February 2024 to 11 March 2024.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,563 hectares (65.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kanbalu (4,708 ha, 1.2 %); Thabeikkyin (1,887 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, class Very 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

26 October 2026 Last day with fire: 11 March 2024 → 18 March 2024.
26 October 2026 Start date: 27 February 2024 → 20 February 2024.

RSS Changes to this page

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

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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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 27 February 2024 to 11 March 2024. 253 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.
Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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