How long did the Matupi fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 February 2016 to 10 March 2016 (11 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 March 2016 to 8 March 2016.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,153 hectares (31.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Tilin (2,324 ha, 1.7 %); Matupi (847 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 33.1 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 26 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 13, class Moderate.

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.

MM · Myanmar · 2016-02-29 → 2016-03-10

Matupi fire, February 2016 Tilin, Matupi

Out · last detection 10 Mar 2016, 19:26 UTC

The fire started on 29 February 2016 in Matupi, Myanmar, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,153 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 112th largest in Chin since 2016 (of 242 with a page). Number 63 in Myanmar in 2016, of 157.

The power measured by the satellite is low (11.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Tilin · 2024 Tilin · 2019 Gangaw · 2023 Tilin · 2025

Burnt area: 3,153ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 11days; 29 Feb 2016 – 10 Mar 2016
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 29 Feb; 2016
Heat detections: 99; in a single hotspot: 11 MW
Danger at start: 1; Very low · FWI index
Average daily power: 30MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Feb10 Mar

Play back 10 Mar 2016

How it evolved, day by day

29 Feb 2 Mar 4 Mar 5 Mar 6 Mar 8 Mar

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

The weather it burned in

33°high

26km/h · peak gust

32%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 2% of the area of London (32 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Tilin

2,324 ha reached on 1 Mar

1.7 %
Matupi where it started

847 ha reached on 29 Feb

0.1 %

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)
1 Mar	27.9 °C	50 %	26 km/h	0.6 mm	Very low 1
2 Mar	28.2 °C	49 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 3
3 Mar	30.1 °C	40 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
4 Mar	31.3 °C	46 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 7
5 Mar	30.5 °C	46 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 8
6 Mar	31.3 °C	44 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 8
7 Mar	33.1 °C	40 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 11
8 Mar	32.5 °C	32 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
9 Mar	32.1 °C	36 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
10 Mar	31.9 °C	43 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
11 Mar after	34.1 °C	39 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
12 Mar after	32.0 °C	40 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
13 Mar after	33.0 °C	35 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
14 Mar after	33.1 °C	35 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
15 Mar after	32.8 °C	30 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
16 Mar after	34.7 °C	30 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
17 Mar after	32.9 °C	35 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
18 Mar after	33.2 °C	38 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 22 Feb 2016

After · 17 Mar 2016

Before After

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 · 99Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Myanmar ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Matupi fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 February 2016 to 10 March 2016 (11 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 March 2016 to 8 March 2016.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,153 hectares (31.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Tilin (2,324 ha, 1.7 %); Matupi (847 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 33.1 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 26 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 13, class Moderate.
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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

RSS Changes to this page

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

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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 1 March 2016 to 8 March 2016. 99 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.

Where it burned