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Kanpetlet fire, March 2017 Kanpetlet

Out · last detection 30 Mar 2017, 06:36 UTC

The fire started on 22 March 2017 in Kanpetlet, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,535 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 91th largest in Chin since 2016 (of 244 with a page). Number 40 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2017, of 118.

Burnt area
3,535ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
22 Mar 2017 – 30 Mar 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
22 Mar
2017
Heat detections
135
in a single hotspot: 78 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
856MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

30 Mar 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Mar30 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

2223242527282930

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
65km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 149 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Kanpetlet where it started
    3,549 ha reached on 19 Mar
    1.4 %

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)
22 Mar 34.3 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
23 Mar 36.0 °C 24 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Mar 36.5 °C 23 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Mar 37.5 °C 25 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Mar 36.6 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Mar 37.3 °C 23 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Mar 36.2 °C 26 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Mar 35.0 °C 29 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Mar 33.5 °C 41 % 65 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
31 Mar after 36.6 °C 30 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
1 Apr after 34.6 °C 38 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Apr after 34.8 °C 39 % 53 km/h 0.3 mm High 34
3 Apr after 31.3 °C 45 % 60 km/h 0.9 mm High 23
4 Apr after 32.1 °C 34 % 47 km/h 0.6 mm High 27
5 Apr after 34.9 °C 28 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Apr after 37.6 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Apr after 37.8 °C 31 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Apr after 39.9 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Apr after 38.4 °C 30 % 46 km/h 0.4 mm High 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Mar 2017
After · 6 Apr 2017

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 · 135Every 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 22 March 2017 and 30 March 2017: 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 3,535 hectares (35.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kanpetlet (3,549 ha, 1.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 65 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.