Mese fire, 14 February 2021 Mese
The fire started on 14 February 2021 in Mese, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,555 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 114th largest in Kayah since 2016 (of 159 with a page). Number 94 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2021, of 159.
The power measured by the satellite is low (20.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 2,555ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 14 Feb 2021 – 18 Feb 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 14 Feb
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 87
- in a single hotspot: 20 MW
- Energy released
- 291MW
- 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.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,301 ha in 2016, 1,936 ha in 2017, 1,856 ha in 2018, 455 ha in 2019, 1,928 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,562 ha that had burned before.
- 2,164 ha Mese fire, March 2016 14,694 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,250 ha Mese fire, March 2018 7,180 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,244 ha Mese fire, February 2017 4,593 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 879 ha Mese fire, January 2020 7,069 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 606 ha Khun Yuam fire, March 2018 2,542 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 121 ha Mese fire, March 2019 2,454 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 104 ha Khun Yuam fire, March 2019 1,680 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5 ha Khun Yuam fire, March 2019 1,435 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Mese where it started2,570 ha reached on 14 Feb1.4 %
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.
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.
Detections table · 87Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 91,510 haKhun Yuam15 March 2026 · 36 days · 10 km away
- 36,428 haMese24 February 2024 · 24 days · 14 km away
- 49,213 haMae Sariang19 March 2026 · 26 days · 26 km away
- 48,494 haMae Sariang2 March 2025 · 34 days · 26 km away
- 32,496 haHpasawng13 March 2026 · 32 days · 34 km away
- 107,025 haMae Sariang28 February 2019 · 46 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mese fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 February 2021 and 18 February 2021: 5 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 2,555 hectares (25.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Mese (2,570 ha, 1.4 %).
- 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.