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Lawksawk fire, 20 March 2019 Lawksawk

Out · last detection 1 Apr 2019, 06:11 UTC

The fire started on 20 March 2019 in Lawksawk, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,888 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 200th largest in Shan since 2016 (of 723 with a page). Number 30 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2019, of 141.

Burnt area
3,888ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
20 Mar 2019 – 1 Apr 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
20 Mar
2019
Heat detections
227
in a single hotspot: 99 MW
Danger at start
25
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Apr 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Mar1 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

20222324252627282930311

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
48km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

67% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,943 ha in 2016, 1,981 ha in 2017, 377 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,597 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Lawksawk where it started
    3,903 ha reached on 13 Mar
    0.8 %

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)
20 Mar 31.2 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm High 25
21 Mar 32.0 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
22 Mar 32.5 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
23 Mar 33.3 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
24 Mar 34.0 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
25 Mar 34.7 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
26 Mar 34.9 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
27 Mar 34.3 °C 23 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
28 Mar 30.1 °C 30 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
29 Mar 34.0 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
30 Mar 34.3 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
31 Mar 35.0 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
1 Apr 33.5 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
2 Apr after 33.3 °C 33 % 44 km/h 0.3 mm High 32
3 Apr after 32.4 °C 28 % 46 km/h 0.2 mm High 34
4 Apr after 34.3 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
5 Apr after 35.3 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
6 Apr after 34.3 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
7 Apr after 32.6 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.3 mm High 33
8 Apr after 34.7 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Apr after 32.8 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
10 Apr after 35.8 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Apr after 34.7 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Mar 2019
After · 8 Apr 2019

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 · 227Every 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 Lawksawk fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 March 2019 and 1 April 2019: 13 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 3,888 hectares (38.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lawksawk (3,903 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.0 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, 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.