Mese fire, 24 February 2024 Mese
The fire started on 24 February 2024 in Mese, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,750 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 56th largest in Kayah since 2016 (of 159 with a page). Number 52 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2024, of 161.
- Burnt area
- 3,750ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 8days
- 24 Feb 2024 – 2 Mar 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 24 Feb
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 154
- in a single hotspot: 34 MW
- Danger at start
- 25
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 633MW
- 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.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 28 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
88% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 28 ha in 2016, 18 ha in 2017, 115 ha in 2018, 916 ha in 2019, 622 ha in 2020, 2,282 ha in 2021, 815 ha in 2022, 499 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,297 ha that had burned before.
- 2,068 ha Mese fire, February 2021 4,083 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 220 ha Mese fire, March 2019 2,454 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 209 ha Mae Sariang fire, February 2021 2,718 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 189 ha Mese fire, January 2020 7,069 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 58 ha Mae Sariang fire, March 2018 5,194 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 57 ha Mese fire, March 2018 7,180 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 37 ha Khun Yuam fire, February 2020 4,948 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 28 ha Mese fire, March 2016 14,694 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Mese where it started3,770 ha reached on 17 Feb2.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 Feb | 36.1 °C | 32 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 25 Feb | 37.2 °C | 30 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 26 Feb | 37.0 °C | 31 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 27 Feb | 37.8 °C | 33 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 28 Feb | 38.2 °C | 30 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 29 Feb | 37.5 °C | 30 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 1 Mar | 37.4 °C | 32 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 2 Mar | 37.9 °C | 29 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 3 Mar after | 37.3 °C | 33 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 4 Mar after | 38.0 °C | 24 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 5 Mar after | 37.8 °C | 31 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 6 Mar after | 37.7 °C | 33 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 7 Mar after | 37.2 °C | 31 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 8 Mar after | 38.2 °C | 33 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 9 Mar after | 38.3 °C | 30 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 10 Mar after | 38.2 °C | 34 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 11 Mar after | 38.3 °C | 27 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 12 Mar after | 37.0 °C | 33 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
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 1 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 53 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 35: 2.3 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 · 154Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 48,494 haMae Sariang2 March 2025 · 34 days · 14 km away
- 49,213 haMae Sariang19 March 2026 · 26 days · 15 km away
- 91,510 haKhun Yuam15 March 2026 · 36 days · 22 km away
- 19,129 haMese13 March 2025 · 14 days · 22 km away
- 36,428 haMese24 February 2024 · 24 days · 25 km away
- 107,025 haMae Sariang28 February 2019 · 46 days · 27 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mese fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 February 2024 and 2 March 2024: 8 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 3,750 hectares (37.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Mese (3,770 ha, 2.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.2 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 26 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, 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.
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.