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Lashio fire, March 2022 Lashio, Hsipaw

Out · last detection 21 Mar 2022, 07:09 UTC

The fire started on 10 March 2022 in Lashio, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,673 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 37th largest in Shan since 2016 (of 723 with a page). The largest in Myanmar (Burma) in 2022, of 72.

Burnt area
11,673ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
10 Mar 2022 – 21 Mar 2022
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
10 Mar
2022
Heat detections
492
in a single hotspot: 123 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
5.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Mar 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Mar21 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

101112131415161718192021

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
32km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 31 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 27.3 mm on 23 Mar.

This area had burned before

95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,505 ha in 2016, 3,887 ha in 2017, 7,166 ha in 2018, 8,224 ha in 2019, 4,560 ha in 2020, 8,268 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 11,120 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Lashio where it started
    8,583 ha reached on 10 Mar
    2.2 %
  2. Hsipaw
    3,135 ha reached on 10 Mar
    0.6 %

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)
10 Mar 35.1 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
11 Mar 35.6 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
12 Mar 35.5 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
13 Mar 35.7 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
14 Mar 36.2 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 32
15 Mar 35.7 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
16 Mar 35.8 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Mar 35.0 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
18 Mar 35.4 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Mar 35.5 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Mar 35.0 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Mar 35.5 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
22 Mar after 30.1 °C 42 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
23 Mar after 23.3 °C 83 % 24 km/h 27.3 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Mar 2022
After · 28 Mar 2022

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 · 492Every 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 10 March 2022 and 21 March 2022: 12 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 11,673 hectares (116.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Lashio (8,583 ha, 2.2 %); Hsipaw (3,135 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class 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.