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Monghsat fire, 15 March 2019 Monghsat

Out · last detection 25 Mar 2019, 06:42 UTC

The fire started on 15 March 2019 in Monghsat, Myanmar, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,855 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 406th largest in Shan since 2016 (of 806 with a page). Number 86 in Myanmar in 2019, of 177.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Monghsat · 2017Monghsat · 2026Mongton · 2020Mongton · 2026

Burnt area
2,855ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
15 Mar 2019 – 25 Mar 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
15 Mar
2019
Heat detections
105
in a single hotspot: 329 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Average daily power
445MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Mar25 Mar
25 Mar 2019

How it evolved, day by day

15 Mar 2019 · 131 MW · 4 16 Mar 2019 · 1,334 MW · 34 18 Mar 2019 · 111 MW · 11 19 Mar 2019 · 180 MW · 19 20 Mar 2019 · 91 MW · 12 21 Mar 2019 · 7 MW · 1 22 Mar 2019 · 2,095 MW · 17 23 Mar 2019 · 40 MW · 5 25 Mar 2019 · 15 MW · 2
15 Mar 18 Mar 20 Mar 22 Mar 25 Mar

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
52km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

71% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,136 ha in 2016, 1,993 ha in 2017, 155 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,041 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.8% of the area of London (29 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Monghsat where it started
    2,868 ha reached on 15 Mar
    0.6 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
15 Mar 34.0 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
16 Mar 34.3 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
17 Mar 34.8 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
18 Mar 35.4 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Mar 35.0 °C 17 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Mar 34.8 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Mar 33.8 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Mar 32.9 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Mar 34.0 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
24 Mar 35.4 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Mar 35.4 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
26 Mar after 35.5 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
27 Mar after 34.7 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
28 Mar after 32.3 °C 28 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
29 Mar after 33.9 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Mar after 34.0 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
31 Mar after 34.8 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
1 Apr after 35.7 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Mar 2019
After · 1 Apr 2019

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 · 105Every 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 ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Monghsat fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 15 March 2019 to 25 March 2019 (11 days). The perimeter dates it from 15 March 2019 to 22 March 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,855 hectares (28.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Monghsat (2,868 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 52 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 (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.
  1. Last day with fire: 22 March 2019 → 25 March 2019.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

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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 15 March 2019 to 22 March 2019. 105 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.