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Lashio fire, 9 March 2020 Lashio, Hsipaw

Out · last detection 18 Mar 2020, 18:40 UTC

The fire started on 9 March 2020 in Lashio, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,460 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 111th largest in Shan since 2016 (of 723 with a page). Number 27 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2020, of 166.

Burnt area
5,460ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
9 Mar 2020 – 17 Mar 2020
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
9 Mar
2020
Heat detections
311
in a single hotspot: 178 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Mar 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Mar17 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

9101112131415161718

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
41km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 334 ha in 2016, 2,472 ha in 2017, 4,238 ha in 2018, 3,798 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,968 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Lashio where it started
    5,371 ha reached on 2 Mar
    1.4 %
  2. Hsipaw
    104 ha reached on 10 Mar
    0.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre 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)
9 Mar 32.9 °C 23 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Mar 33.0 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Mar 34.1 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Mar 34.7 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Mar 35.1 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Mar 35.8 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Mar 35.5 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Mar 36.0 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Mar 34.4 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
18 Mar after 33.7 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Mar after 33.7 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Mar after 33.0 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Mar after 31.1 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.2 mm High 38
22 Mar after 32.0 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 41
23 Mar after 31.9 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Mar after 31.8 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
25 Mar after 33.5 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
26 Mar after 33.8 °C 29 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
27 Mar after 34.7 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Mar 2020
After · 24 Mar 2020

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 · 311Every 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 (Burma) ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Lashio fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 March 2020 and 17 March 2020: 9 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 5,460 hectares (54.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Lashio (5,371 ha, 1.4 %); Hsipaw (104 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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 (Burma) (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

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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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.