Kanpetlet fire, 21 February 2023 Kanpetlet, Sidoktaya
The fire started on 21 February 2023 in Kanpetlet, Myanmar, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,967 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 126th largest in Chin since 2016 (of 242 with a page). Number 116 in Myanmar in 2023, of 240.
The power measured by the satellite is low (12.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 2,967ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 18days
- 21 Feb 2023 – 10 Mar 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 21 Feb
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 127
- in a single hotspot: 12 MW
- Danger at start
- 30
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 29MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 645 ha in 2016, 845 ha in 2017, 679 ha in 2018, 2,257 ha in 2019, 1,294 ha in 2020, 777 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,648 ha that had burned before.
- 2,257 ha Sidoktaya fire, March 2019 29,536 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,044 ha Kanpetlet fire, March 2020 3,527 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 845 ha Sidoktaya fire, March 2017 16,167 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 758 ha Kanpetlet fire, February 2021 19,378 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 214 ha Kanpetlet fire, March 2020 24,764 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Kanpetlet where it started1,599 ha reached on 21 Feb0.6 %
-
1,384 ha reached on 28 Feb0.5 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 0.17 hectares of built-up land and about 70 residents (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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 Feb | 33.6 °C | 24 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 1 Mar | 33.6 °C | 28 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 2 Mar | 35.0 °C | 25 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 3 Mar | 34.7 °C | 20 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 4 Mar | 34.6 °C | 23 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 5 Mar | 35.3 °C | 21 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 6 Mar | 34.9 °C | 29 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 7 Mar | 35.4 °C | 25 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 8 Mar | 34.6 °C | 29 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 9 Mar | 35.8 °C | 23 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 10 Mar | 36.5 °C | 17 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 11 Mar after | 34.7 °C | 22 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 12 Mar after | 33.6 °C | 25 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 13 Mar after | 34.6 °C | 26 % | 37 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 39 |
| 14 Mar after | 34.0 °C | 25 % | 46 km/h | 0.8 mm | High 35 |
| 15 Mar after | 35.0 °C | 23 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 4 March 2023 the air beside the fire reached 50 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 36: 2.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 127Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 29,536 haSidoktaya9 March 2019 · 45 days · 2 km away
- 19,378 haKanpetletFebruary 2021 · 38 days · 8 km away
- 19,991 haKanpetlet7 March 2025 · 30 days · 10 km away
- 24,764 haKanpetlet20 March 2020 · 30 days · 12 km away
- 18,538 haKanpetlet9 March 2020 · 40 days · 18 km away
- 99,370 haSaw18 February 2026 · 64 days · 23 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kanpetlet fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 21 February 2023 to 10 March 2023 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 28 February 2023 to 5 March 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,967 hectares (29.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kanpetlet (1,599 ha, 0.6 %); Sidoktaya (1,384 ha, 0.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 36 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.
- Last day with fire: 5 March 2023 → 10 March 2023.
- Start date: 28 February 2023 → 21 February 2023.
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
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 28 February 2023 to 5 March 2023. 127 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.
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.