Lashio fire, March 2024 Lashio, Hsipaw
The fire started on 5 March 2024 in Lashio, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,156 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 86th largest in Shan since 2016 (of 723 with a page). Number 25 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2024, of 161.
- Burnt area
- 6,156ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 12days
- 5 Mar 2024 – 16 Mar 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 5 Mar
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 267
- in a single hotspot: 165 MW
- Danger at start
- 29
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 4.2GW
- sum of detected power
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 38 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 mm on 21 Mar.
This area had burned before
95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,696 ha in 2016, 3,970 ha in 2017, 3,964 ha in 2018, 4,539 ha in 2019, 2,854 ha in 2020, 3,322 ha in 2021, 2,369 ha in 2022, 2,622 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,850 ha that had burned before.
- 4,539 ha Lashio fire, March 2019 12,510 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,964 ha Lashio fire, March 2018 22,027 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,811 ha Lashio fire, March 2017 4,352 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,987 ha Lashio fire, March 2022 11,673 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,544 ha Lashio fire, March 2021 10,519 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,505 ha Lashio fire, February 2023 2,925 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,337 ha Lashio fire, March 2016 2,348 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 998 ha Lashio fire, March 2020 5,460 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Lashio where it started6,100 ha reached on 29 Feb1.6 %
-
74 ha reached on 4 Mar0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 Mar | 32.8 °C | 24 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 6 Mar | 32.7 °C | 30 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 7 Mar | 32.6 °C | 24 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 8 Mar | 33.0 °C | 25 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 9 Mar | 32.2 °C | 25 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 10 Mar | 32.5 °C | 23 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 11 Mar | 32.9 °C | 22 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 12 Mar | 33.0 °C | 27 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 13 Mar | 32.9 °C | 28 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 14 Mar | 32.3 °C | 26 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 15 Mar | 33.0 °C | 29 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 16 Mar | 32.7 °C | 34 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 17 Mar after | 33.2 °C | 29 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 18 Mar after | 34.2 °C | 27 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 19 Mar after | 32.8 °C | 31 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 20 Mar after | 35.3 °C | 25 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 21 Mar after | 33.1 °C | 33 % | 21 km/h | 1.8 mm | Moderate 19 |
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 15 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 49 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 40: 2.6 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 · 267Every 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 Lashio fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 March 2024 and 16 March 2024: 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 6,156 hectares (61.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Lashio (6,100 ha, 1.6 %); Hsipaw (74 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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.
Report an error
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.