Mindon fire, 24 February 2021 Mindon
The fire started on 24 February 2021 in Mindon, Myanmar, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,563 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 124th largest in Magway since 2016 (of 190 with a page). Number 113 in Myanmar in 2021, of 190.
The power measured by the satellite is low (16.0 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: Mindon · 2019Mindon · 2026Mindon · 2017Mindon · 2026
- Burnt area
- 2,563ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 14days
- 24 Feb 2021 – 9 Mar 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 24 Feb
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 84
- in a single hotspot: 16 MW
- Danger at start
- 35
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 27MW
- 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 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
62% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 479 ha in 2016, 61 ha in 2017, 18 ha in 2018, 1,154 ha in 2019, 6 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,591 ha that had burned before.
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
-
Mindon where it started2,576 ha reached on 25 Feb1.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Mar | 36.0 °C | 26 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 4 Mar | 34.3 °C | 18 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 5 Mar | 35.7 °C | 19 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 6 Mar | 34.5 °C | 17 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 7 Mar | 35.0 °C | 25 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 8 Mar | 35.6 °C | 21 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 9 Mar | 37.4 °C | 24 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 10 Mar after | 36.9 °C | 25 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 11 Mar after | 36.9 °C | 27 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 12 Mar after | 37.4 °C | 25 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 13 Mar after | 38.5 °C | 25 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 14 Mar after | 37.0 °C | 25 % | 57 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 15 Mar after | 37.4 °C | 24 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 16 Mar after | 37.9 °C | 24 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 17 Mar after | 38.3 °C | 21 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 18 Mar after | 36.2 °C | 23 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 19 Mar after | 38.1 °C | 24 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
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 · 84Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 6,737 haMindon25 February 2026 · 26 days · 2 km away
- 6,106 haMindonFebruary 2017 · 17 days · 12 km away
- 6,098 haMindon26 February 2026 · 12 days · 23 km away
- 11,923 haMindon25 February 2025 · 19 days · 27 km away
- 9,792 haMindonFebruary 2024 · 25 days · 30 km away
- 8,345 haMinhla10 March 2026 · 21 days · 30 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mindon fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 24 February 2021 to 9 March 2021 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 March 2021 to 9 March 2021.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,563 hectares (25.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Mindon (2,576 ha, 1.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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 (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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 3 March 2021 → 24 February 2021.
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 3 March 2021 to 9 March 2021. 84 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.