Mindon fire, March 2023 Mindon, Minhla
The fire started on 25 March 2023 in Mindon, Myanmar, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,284 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 50th largest in Magway since 2016 (of 190 with a page). Number 68 in Myanmar in 2023, of 240.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Mindon · 2019Mindon · 2020Mindon · 2019Mindon · 2018
- Burnt area
- 4,284ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 22days
- 25 Mar 2023 – 15 Apr 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 25 Mar
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 245
- in a single hotspot: 54 MW
- Danger at start
- 14
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 63MW
- 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 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,234 ha in 2016, 361 ha in 2018, 2,602 ha in 2019, 3,196 ha in 2020, 117 ha in 2021, 56 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,937 ha that had burned before.
- 2,059 ha Mindon fire, April 2019 2,908 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,644 ha Mindon fire, April 2020 5,686 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 499 ha Mindon fire, April 2019 2,061 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 336 ha Mindon fire, February 2018 4,276 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
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 started4,175 ha reached on 25 Mar1.6 %
-
137 ha reached on 25 Mar0.1 %
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 Apr | 33.9 °C | 39 % | 46 km/h | 2.6 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 2 Apr | 28.5 °C | 62 % | 50 km/h | 1.9 mm | Low 7 |
| 3 Apr | 31.4 °C | 48 % | 50 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 4 Apr | 34.4 °C | 35 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 5 Apr | 36.0 °C | 37 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 6 Apr | 36.7 °C | 35 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 7 Apr | 39.1 °C | 29 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 8 Apr | 39.3 °C | 26 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 9 Apr | 39.0 °C | 27 % | 46 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 36 |
| 10 Apr | 38.8 °C | 28 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 11 Apr | 38.0 °C | 33 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 12 Apr | 38.3 °C | 30 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 13 Apr | 36.9 °C | 33 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 14 Apr | 38.7 °C | 31 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 15 Apr | 39.1 °C | 33 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 16 Apr after | 36.8 °C | 35 % | 45 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 38 |
| 17 Apr after | 36.6 °C | 42 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 18 Apr after | 38.3 °C | 32 % | 39 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 33 |
| 19 Apr after | 36.6 °C | 39 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 20 Apr after | 36.3 °C | 47 % | 45 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 31 |
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 9 April 2023 the air beside the fire reached 298 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 117: 7.8 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 · 245Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 9,792 haMindonFebruary 2024 · 25 days · 7 km away
- 6,118 haMinhla12 March 2026 · 18 days · 9 km away
- 11,923 haMindon25 February 2025 · 19 days · 10 km away
- 6,098 haMindon26 February 2026 · 12 days · 13 km away
- 10,271 haMinhlaFebruary 2026 · 17 days · 18 km away
- 8,345 haMinhla10 March 2026 · 21 days · 23 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 25 March 2023 to 15 April 2023 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 April 2023 to 10 April 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,284 hectares (42.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mindon (4,175 ha, 1.6 %); Minhla (137 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.3 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 10 April 2023 → 15 April 2023.
- Start date: 1 April 2023 → 25 March 2023.
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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 1 April 2023 to 10 April 2023. 245 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.