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Lawksawk fire, February 2023 Lawksawk

Out · last detection 11 Feb 2023, 06:38 UTC

The fire started on 5 February 2023 in Lawksawk, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,585 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 231th largest in Shan since 2016 (of 723 with a page). Number 71 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2023, of 212.

Burnt area
3,585ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
5 Feb 2023 – 10 Feb 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
5 Feb
2023
Heat detections
134
in a single hotspot: 95 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Feb 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Feb10 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

567891011

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
35km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 46 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.2 mm on 17 Feb.

This area had burned before

89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,204 ha in 2016, 1,454 ha in 2017, 1,678 ha in 2020, 2,273 ha in 2021, 1,761 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,194 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Lawksawk where it started
    3,590 ha reached on 5 Feb
    0.7 %

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 Feb 29.5 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
6 Feb 28.1 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
7 Feb 26.8 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
8 Feb 25.3 °C 32 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
9 Feb 26.5 °C 32 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
10 Feb 26.6 °C 36 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
11 Feb after 27.8 °C 31 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
12 Feb after 28.1 °C 33 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
13 Feb after 28.3 °C 33 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
14 Feb after 28.8 °C 29 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
15 Feb after 30.1 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
16 Feb after 29.3 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Feb after 22.4 °C 52 % 23 km/h 5.2 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Jan 2023
After · 17 Feb 2023

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 · 134Every 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 5 February 2023 and 10 February 2023: 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 3,585 hectares (35.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lawksawk (3,590 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.5 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, 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.