Langkho fire, 16 March 2026 Langkho, Mawkmai, Shadaw
The fire started on 16 March 2026 in Langkho, Myanmar, and satellites saw it burning for 36 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 122,602 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.
Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:
- 65,971 haShadaw13 March 2026 · 44 days
- 30,393 haPang Mapha ปางมะผ้า23 March 2026 · 31 days
- 13,153 haLangkho18 March 2026 · 24 days
- 11,795 haLangkho22 March 2026 · 20 days
- 10,670 haLoikaw28 February 2026 · 19 days
- 9,332 haMawkmai14 March 2026 · 21 days
- 8,238 haShadaw16 March 2026 · 30 days
- 7,611 haLoikaw16 March 2026 · 19 days
It is the largest fire in Shan since 2016 (of 806 with a page). The largest in Myanmar in 2026, of 480.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 122,602ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 36days
- 16 Mar 2026 – 20 Apr 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 16 Mar
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 4,367
- in a single hotspot: 75 MW
- Danger at start
- 16
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 404MW
- 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 one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.2 mm on 25 Apr.
This area had burned before
35% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 9,373 ha in 2016, 12,609 ha in 2017, 3,427 ha in 2018, 11,996 ha in 2019, 11,639 ha in 2020, 15,441 ha in 2021, 1,932 ha in 2022, 5,191 ha in 2023, 18,777 ha in 2024, 5,449 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 42,380 ha that had burned before.
- 12,044 ha Langkho fire, February 2021 17,281 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,880 ha Langkho fire, February 2024 7,077 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,351 ha Langkho fire, March 2019 4,548 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,433 ha Langkho fire, March 2024 6,106 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,171 ha Langkho fire, March 2016 3,302 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,142 ha Langkho fire, February 2017 3,262 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,604 ha Langkho fire, February 2017 3,306 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,521 ha Langkho fire, April 2019 3,215 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 started103,457 ha reached on 16 Mar20 %
-
10,611 ha reached on 16 Mar4.3 %
-
9,031 ha reached on 17 Mar4.1 %
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 1.4 hectares of built-up land and about 350 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Mar | 31.1 °C | 37 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 17 Mar | 31.5 °C | 36 % | 34 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 18 Mar | 33.9 °C | 30 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 19 Mar | 34.9 °C | 25 % | 27 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 25 |
| 20 Mar | 33.4 °C | 29 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 21 Mar | 34.6 °C | 35 % | 37 km/h | 1.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 22 Mar | 32.6 °C | 34 % | 46 km/h | 1.9 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 23 Mar | 34.0 °C | 25 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 24 Mar | 34.6 °C | 25 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 25 Mar | 35.3 °C | 25 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 26 Mar | 35.7 °C | 26 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 27 Mar | 35.5 °C | 27 % | 36 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 30 |
| 28 Mar | 36.5 °C | 24 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 29 Mar | 35.5 °C | 24 % | 48 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 34 |
| 30 Mar | 36.4 °C | 25 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 31 Mar | 36.5 °C | 27 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 1 Apr | 36.8 °C | 28 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 2 Apr | 36.4 °C | 27 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 3 Apr | 38.0 °C | 24 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 4 Apr | 37.4 °C | 29 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 5 Apr | 37.2 °C | 33 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 6 Apr | 36.0 °C | 34 % | 26 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 30 |
| 7 Apr | 35.1 °C | 35 % | 40 km/h | 0.7 mm | High 28 |
| 8 Apr | 35.8 °C | 34 % | 38 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 29 |
| 9 Apr | 34.5 °C | 34 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 10 Apr | 34.7 °C | 31 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 11 Apr | 35.5 °C | 28 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 12 Apr | 37.3 °C | 22 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 13 Apr | 37.5 °C | 25 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 14 Apr | 37.6 °C | 25 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 15 Apr | 37.6 °C | 31 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 16 Apr | 35.8 °C | 27 % | 28 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 35 |
| 17 Apr | 37.3 °C | 26 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 18 Apr | 36.2 °C | 35 % | 33 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 34 |
| 19 Apr | 37.1 °C | 30 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 20 Apr | 35.3 °C | 38 % | 37 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 33 |
| 21 Apr after | 38.8 °C | 27 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 22 Apr after | 37.7 °C | 29 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 23 Apr after | 35.8 °C | 35 % | 27 km/h | 0.9 mm | High 24 |
| 24 Apr after | 38.8 °C | 27 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 25 Apr after | 34.4 °C | 44 % | 28 km/h | 8.2 mm | Very low 5 |
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 5 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 112 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 75: 5.0 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 · 4,367Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Langkho fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 March 2026 to 20 April 2026 (36 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 March 2026 to 17 April 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 122,602 hectares (1,226.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Langkho (103,457 ha, 20 %); Mawkmai (10,611 ha, 4.3 %); Shadaw (9,031 ha, 4.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.0 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 17 April 2026 → 20 April 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; 10 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 16 March 2026 to 17 April 2026. 4,367 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.