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Kanpetlet fire, 6 April 2016 Kanpetlet, Sidoktaya, Saw

Out · last detection 20 Apr 2016, 07:28 UTC

The fire started on 6 April 2016 in Kanpetlet, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,201 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 31th largest in Chin since 2016 (of 244 with a page). Number 6 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2016, of 119.

Burnt area
7,201ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
6 Apr 2016 – 19 Apr 2016
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
6 Apr
2016
Heat detections
274
in a single hotspot: 112 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Apr 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Apr19 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

67891011121314151617181920

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
67km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.5 mm on 22 Apr.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Kanpetlet where it started
    5,339 ha reached on 6 Apr
    2.1 %
  2. Sidoktaya
    1,644 ha reached on 8 Apr
    0.6 %
  3. Saw
    258 ha reached on 7 Apr
    0.1 %

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)
6 Apr 31.9 °C 36 % 56 km/h 0.2 mm High 32
7 Apr 32.7 °C 35 % 39 km/h 2.5 mm Low 11
8 Apr 32.5 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.4 mm High 26
9 Apr 35.6 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
10 Apr 35.7 °C 27 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Apr 35.9 °C 26 % 50 km/h 0.4 mm High 36
12 Apr 31.1 °C 33 % 67 km/h 1.6 mm High 23
13 Apr 30.8 °C 38 % 64 km/h 0.3 mm High 28
14 Apr 32.5 °C 33 % 50 km/h 0.3 mm High 28
15 Apr 32.9 °C 32 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
16 Apr 33.3 °C 23 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
17 Apr 33.0 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
18 Apr 34.1 °C 27 % 52 km/h 0.5 mm High 36
19 Apr 34.7 °C 25 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Apr after 33.8 °C 18 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Apr after 31.9 °C 34 % 71 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 40
22 Apr after 30.6 °C 49 % 71 km/h 5.5 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Mar 2016
After · 26 Apr 2016

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 · 274Every 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 Kanpetlet fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 April 2016 and 19 April 2016: 14 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 7,201 hectares (72.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Kanpetlet (5,339 ha, 2.1 %); Sidoktaya (1,644 ha, 0.6 %); Saw (258 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.9 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 67 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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 (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.