Lashio fire, March 2025 Lashio, Hsipaw
The fire started on 13 March 2025 in Lashio, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,923 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 137th largest in Shan since 2016 (of 723 with a page). Number 23 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2025, of 123.
- Burnt area
- 4,923ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 6days
- 13 Mar 2025 – 18 Mar 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 13 Mar
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 189
- in a single hotspot: 69 MW
- Danger at start
- 34
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 2.1GW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 22 Mar.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 445 ha in 2016, 1,637 ha in 2017, 3,030 ha in 2018, 2,855 ha in 2019, 2,618 ha in 2020, 3,168 ha in 2021, 3,558 ha in 2022, 1,191 ha in 2023, 1,332 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,783 ha that had burned before.
- 3,519 ha Lashio fire, March 2022 11,673 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,116 ha Lashio fire, March 2021 10,519 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,030 ha Lashio fire, March 2018 22,027 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,618 ha Lashio fire, March 2020 5,460 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,668 ha Lashio fire, March 2019 12,510 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,187 ha Lashio fire, March 2019 3,296 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 445 ha Lashio fire, March 2016 2,025 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 424 ha Lashio fire, March 2017 2,836 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Lashio where it started4,715 ha reached on 6 Mar1.2 %
-
224 ha reached on 13 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 Mar | 32.2 °C | 28 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 14 Mar | 33.3 °C | 26 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 15 Mar | 34.0 °C | 28 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 16 Mar | 35.0 °C | 26 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 17 Mar | 35.0 °C | 26 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 18 Mar | 34.0 °C | 32 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 19 Mar after | 33.8 °C | 28 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 20 Mar after | 31.0 °C | 40 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 21 Mar after | 30.3 °C | 40 % | 28 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 27 |
| 22 Mar after | 31.3 °C | 44 % | 32 km/h | 1.4 mm | Moderate 16 |
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 21 March 2025 the air beside the fire reached 197 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 136: 9.1 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 · 189Every 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 13 March 2025 and 18 March 2025: 6 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 4,923 hectares (49.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Lashio (4,715 ha, 1.2 %); Hsipaw (224 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.0 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 38 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 (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.