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MM · Myanmar · –

Kyauktaga fire, March 2026 Kyauktaga

Out · last detection 11 Apr 2026, 19:58 UTC

The fire started on 13 March 2026 in Kyauktaga, Myanmar, and satellites saw it burning for 30 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,443 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

Number 208 in Myanmar in 2026, of 480.

GWIS near-real-time perimeter, from the layer that changed in October 2025: this fire is not compared with fires from earlier years, because since then the GWIS layer gives more and larger perimeters.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Phyu · 2026

Burnt area
3,443ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
30days
13 Mar 2026 – 11 Apr 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
13 Mar
2026
Heat detections
99
in a single hotspot: 144 MW
Danger at start
4
Very low · FWI index
Average daily power
129MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Mar11 Apr
11 Apr 2026

How it evolved, day by day

13 Mar 2026 · 11 MW · 1 16 Mar 2026 · 16 MW · 1 19 Mar 2026 · 15 MW · 2 20 Mar 2026 · 482 MW · 8 21 Mar 2026 · 77 MW · 8 22 Mar 2026 · 90 MW · 4 23 Mar 2026 · 279 MW · 8 24 Mar 2026 · 400 MW · 8 27 Mar 2026 · 469 MW · 13 28 Mar 2026 · 3 MW · 1 29 Mar 2026 · 70 MW · 6 30 Mar 2026 · 156 MW · 9 31 Mar 2026 · 301 MW · 15 1 Apr 2026 · 6 MW · 2 2 Apr 2026 · 17 MW · 3 3 Apr 2026 · 5 MW · 1 6 Apr 2026 · 29 MW · 4 10 Apr 2026 · 11 MW · 1 11 Apr 2026 · 11 MW · 4
13 Mar 20 Mar 27 Mar 31 Mar 6 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

38°high
30km/h · peak gust
39%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 17 Apr.

This area had burned before

60% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 740 ha in 2017, 893 ha in 2022, 950 ha in 2023, 906 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,075 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.2% of the area of London (34 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. Kyauktaga where it started
    3,462 ha reached on 13 Mar
    1.2 %

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)
13 Mar 32.4 °C 54 % 29 km/h 3.5 mm Very low 4
14 Mar 31.9 °C 54 % 28 km/h 0.4 mm Low 8
15 Mar 33.3 °C 56 % 23 km/h 0.3 mm Low 11
16 Mar 33.9 °C 52 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
17 Mar 34.4 °C 47 % 25 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 16
18 Mar 34.8 °C 45 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
19 Mar 35.0 °C 44 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
20 Mar 33.7 °C 54 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
21 Mar 35.2 °C 49 % 29 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 18
22 Mar 34.9 °C 51 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 16
23 Mar 35.1 °C 40 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
24 Mar 35.3 °C 42 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
25 Mar 35.3 °C 41 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
26 Mar 36.1 °C 41 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
27 Mar 37.0 °C 41 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
28 Mar 37.4 °C 40 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
29 Mar 37.4 °C 39 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
30 Mar 37.3 °C 42 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
31 Mar 37.4 °C 45 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
1 Apr 37.6 °C 45 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
2 Apr 37.8 °C 43 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
3 Apr 37.2 °C 46 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
4 Apr 36.3 °C 53 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
5 Apr 36.5 °C 53 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
6 Apr 36.7 °C 50 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
7 Apr 35.2 °C 51 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm High 23
8 Apr 36.8 °C 42 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
9 Apr 34.9 °C 49 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
10 Apr 36.6 °C 44 % 20 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
11 Apr 37.3 °C 40 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
12 Apr after 36.9 °C 43 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
13 Apr after 37.1 °C 46 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
14 Apr after 36.7 °C 47 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
15 Apr after 36.7 °C 48 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
16 Apr after 37.0 °C 49 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
17 Apr after 37.8 °C 48 % 23 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 19

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Mar 2026
After · 18 Apr 2026

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 2 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 169 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 88: 5.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak169 µg/m³
Days over the guideline22 days
PM10190 µg/m³
Optical depth1.21
17 Mar22 Mar27 Mar1 Apr6 Apr
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 · 99Every 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 Kyauktaga fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 13 March 2026 to 11 April 2026 (30 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 March 2026 to 4 April 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,443 hectares (34.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kyauktaga (3,462 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 39 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, 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: 4 April 2026 → 11 April 2026.
  2. Start date: 19 March 2026 → 13 March 2026.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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 19 March 2026 to 4 April 2026. 99 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.