Skip to content
worldfires
MM · Myanmar (Burma) · →

Minbya fire, 9 March 2025 Minbya

Out · last detection 20 Mar 2025, 19:07 UTC

The fire started on 9 March 2025 in Minbya, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,216 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 16th largest in Rakhine since 2016 (of 56 with a page). Number 34 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2025, of 123.

Burnt area
4,216ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
9 Mar 2025 – 20 Mar 2025
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
9 Mar
2025
Heat detections
218
in a single hotspot: 32 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
970MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Mar 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Mar20 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

91011121314151617181920

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
51km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

51% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,368 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,169 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Minbya where it started
    4,242 ha reached on 5 Mar
    1.2 %

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)
9 Mar 34.5 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Mar 36.5 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
11 Mar 35.4 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 Mar 34.6 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Mar 35.4 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Mar 36.4 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
15 Mar 36.0 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
16 Mar 37.4 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Mar 37.6 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Mar 35.9 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Mar 36.6 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Mar 37.6 °C 27 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Mar after 35.8 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Mar after 36.6 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Mar after 35.5 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Mar after 35.7 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
25 Mar after 35.4 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Mar after 36.2 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Mar after 35.5 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Mar after 33.3 °C 36 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Mar after 34.7 °C 35 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Mar after 35.7 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Mar 2025
After · 27 Mar 2025

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 · Copernicus

On 11 March 2025 the air beside the fire reached 55 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 45: 3.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak55 µg/m³
Days over the guideline17 days
PM1065 µg/m³
Optical depth0.83
7891011121314151617181920212223
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 218Every 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 Minbya fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 March 2025 and 20 March 2025: 12 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 4,216 hectares (42.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Minbya (4,242 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, class Very 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
What do you think is wrong?

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

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.