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Kanpetlet fire, March 2019 Kanpetlet

Out · last detection 22 Apr 2019, 18:47 UTC

The fire started on 26 March 2019 in Kanpetlet, Myanmar, and satellites saw it burning for 28 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,396 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 65th largest in Chin since 2016 (of 242 with a page). Number 33 in Myanmar in 2019, of 177.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Kanpetlet · 2016Sidoktaya · 2023Saw · 2021Kanpetlet · 2020

Burnt area
4,396ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
28days
26 Mar 2019 – 22 Apr 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
26 Mar
2019
Heat detections
211
in a single hotspot: 83 MW
Danger at start
15
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
58MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Mar22 Apr
22 Apr 2019

How it evolved, day by day

29 Mar 2019 · 1 MW · 2 30 Mar 2019 · 5 MW · 5 2 Apr 2019 · 12 MW · 5 3 Apr 2019 · 65 MW · 20 4 Apr 2019 · 23 MW · 18 5 Apr 2019 · 360 MW · 16 6 Apr 2019 · 9 MW · 4 7 Apr 2019 · 12 MW · 6 8 Apr 2019 · 14 MW · 8 9 Apr 2019 · 1 MW · 1 10 Apr 2019 · 43 MW · 15 11 Apr 2019 · 204 MW · 20 12 Apr 2019 · 139 MW · 13 13 Apr 2019 · 4 MW · 3 14 Apr 2019 · 8 MW · 6 15 Apr 2019 · 84 MW · 16 16 Apr 2019 · 6 MW · 6 18 Apr 2019 · 4 MW · 4 19 Apr 2019 · 40 MW · 8 20 Apr 2019 · 215 MW · 25 21 Apr 2019 · 34 MW · 8 22 Apr 2019 · 2 MW · 2
29 Mar 4 Apr 5 Apr 8 Apr 12 Apr 16 Apr 21 Apr

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
54km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 23 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 1 May.

This area had burned before

36% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,570 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.8% of the area of London (44 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

  1. Kanpetlet where it started
    4,421 ha reached on 29 Mar
    1.8 %

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)
2 Apr 30.3 °C 33 % 45 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 15
3 Apr 31.4 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
4 Apr 31.3 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
5 Apr 31.9 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
6 Apr 29.5 °C 35 % 37 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 15
7 Apr 31.1 °C 24 % 54 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
8 Apr 30.9 °C 28 % 50 km/h 1.0 mm High 26
9 Apr 28.9 °C 30 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
10 Apr 31.5 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Apr 32.1 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Apr 33.6 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
13 Apr 33.5 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Apr 33.9 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Apr 33.9 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
16 Apr 33.9 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
17 Apr 33.9 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
18 Apr 34.2 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
19 Apr 34.1 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Apr 33.2 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Apr 32.9 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Apr 32.6 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.6 mm High 29
23 Apr after 32.1 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
24 Apr after 33.9 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
25 Apr after 34.1 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Apr after 33.5 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Apr after 33.6 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Apr after 34.4 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.3 mm High 37
29 Apr after 35.3 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Apr after 34.7 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 May after 32.6 °C 33 % 45 km/h 1.2 mm High 26

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Mar 2019
After · 29 Apr 2019

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 · 211Every 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 ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kanpetlet fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 March 2019 to 22 April 2019 (28 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 April 2019 to 21 April 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,396 hectares (44.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kanpetlet (4,421 ha, 1.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 21 April 2019 → 22 April 2019.
  2. Start date: 2 April 2019 → 26 March 2019.

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.

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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 2 April 2019 to 21 April 2019. 211 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.

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.