Langkho fire, April 2023 Langkho
The fire started on 4 April 2023 in Langkho, Myanmar, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,605 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 265th largest in Shan since 2016 (of 806 with a page). Number 86 in Myanmar in 2023, of 240.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 3,605ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 8days
- 4 Apr 2023 – 11 Apr 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 4 Apr
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 115
- in a single hotspot: 31 MW
- Danger at start
- 34
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 45MW
- 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 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
74% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,277 ha in 2017, 486 ha in 2019, 724 ha in 2021, 900 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,663 ha that had burned before.
- 963 ha Langkho fire, February 2017 4,469 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 698 ha Langkho fire, February 2021 17,281 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 235 ha Langkho fire, March 2019 2,179 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 13 ha Langkho fire, February 2019 2,794 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
-
Langkho where it started3,622 ha0.7 %
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 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Apr | 35.1 °C | 23 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 5 Apr | 36.7 °C | 20 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 6 Apr | 36.8 °C | 25 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 7 Apr | 37.4 °C | 26 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 8 Apr | 38.2 °C | 27 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 9 Apr | 38.3 °C | 24 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 10 Apr | 38.8 °C | 22 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 11 Apr | 37.9 °C | 28 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 12 Apr after | 38.2 °C | 25 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 13 Apr after | 38.1 °C | 29 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 14 Apr after | 39.1 °C | 24 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 15 Apr after | 39.3 °C | 23 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 16 Apr after | 38.4 °C | 27 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 17 Apr after | 38.9 °C | 28 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 18 Apr after | 39.8 °C | 27 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 19 Apr after | 38.2 °C | 32 % | 39 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 38 |
| 20 Apr after | 38.8 °C | 29 % | 39 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 38 |
| 21 Apr after | 38.9 °C | 28 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
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.
Detections table · 115Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 17,281 haLangkho24 February 2021 · 18 days · 9 km away
- 122,602 haLangkho16 March 2026 · 33 days · 17 km away
- 13,153 haLangkho20 March 2026 · 15 days · 27 km away
- 20,121 haLangkho26 March 2023 · 24 days · 31 km away
- 11,795 haLangkho24 March 2026 · 11 days · 36 km away
- 15,363 haMawkmaiFebruary 2017 · 16 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Langkho fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 April 2023 and 11 April 2023: 8 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 3,605 hectares (36.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Langkho (3,622 ha, 0.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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 (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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 115 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.