Loikaw fire, 23 February 2025 Loikaw, Demoso
The fire started on 23 February 2025 in Loikaw, Myanmar, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,279 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 97th largest in Kayah since 2016 (of 209 with a page). Number 59 in Myanmar in 2025, of 135.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Loikaw · 2020Loikaw · 2024Loikaw · 2021Demoso · 2019
- Burnt area
- 3,279ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 19days
- 23 Feb 2025 – 13 Mar 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 23 Feb
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 151
- in a single hotspot: 58 MW
- Danger at start
- 16
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 87MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
90% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,126 ha in 2016, 877 ha in 2017, 1,561 ha in 2019, 1,352 ha in 2020, 1,337 ha in 2021, 68 ha in 2022, 700 ha in 2023, 1,238 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,953 ha that had burned before.
- 1,329 ha Loikaw fire, January 2020 3,654 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,127 ha Loikaw fire, February 2024 2,170 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 890 ha Loikaw fire, January 2021 2,032 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 780 ha Demoso fire, February 2019 3,405 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Loikaw where it started3,171 ha reached on 24 Feb2.0 %
-
120 ha reached on 23 Feb0.1 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Mar | 36.9 °C | 36 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 3 Mar | 36.5 °C | 37 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 4 Mar | 36.5 °C | 36 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 5 Mar | 35.9 °C | 32 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 6 Mar | 35.6 °C | 34 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 7 Mar | 37.3 °C | 32 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 8 Mar | 35.4 °C | 44 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 9 Mar | 35.7 °C | 42 % | 25 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 10 Mar | 37.1 °C | 37 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 11 Mar | 38.7 °C | 31 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 12 Mar | 37.3 °C | 38 % | 37 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 26 |
| 13 Mar | 38.5 °C | 29 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 14 Mar after | 38.9 °C | 31 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 15 Mar after | 39.2 °C | 31 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 16 Mar after | 39.0 °C | 31 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 17 Mar after | 39.9 °C | 29 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 18 Mar after | 38.8 °C | 35 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
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 5 March 2025 the air beside the fire reached 74 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 45: 3.0 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 · 151Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 51,616 haShadaw27 January 2020 · 52 days · 14 km away
- 25,277 haBawlake25 February 2021 · 26 days · 15 km away
- 18,554 haShadaw15 March 2023 · 30 days · 19 km away
- 65,971 haShadaw13 March 2026 · 44 days · 20 km away
- 22,984 haBawlake17 March 2026 · 29 days · 31 km away
- 21,859 haBawlake22 February 2021 · 24 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Loikaw fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 February 2025 to 13 March 2025 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 March 2025 to 8 March 2025.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,279 hectares (32.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Loikaw (3,171 ha, 2.0 %); Demoso (120 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 22, class High.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Myanmar (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
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 2 March 2025 to 8 March 2025. 151 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.