How long did the Mongkaing fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 February 2026 and 15 February 2026: 13 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 3,531 hectares (35.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mongkaing (3,016 ha, 0.8 %); Lawksawk (539 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 30.8 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 26 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, 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.

MM · Myanmar (Burma) · 2026-02-03 → 2026-02-15

Mongkaing fire, February 2026 Mongkaing, Lawksawk

Out · last detection 16 Feb 2026, 07:40 UTC

The fire started on 3 February 2026 in Mongkaing, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,531 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 241th largest in Shan since 2016 (of 723 with a page). Number 170 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2026, of 418.

Burnt area: 3,531ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 13days; 3 Feb 2026 – 15 Feb 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 3 Feb; 2026
Heat detections: 95; in a single hotspot: 0 MW
Danger at start: 18; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 903MW; sum of detected power

Play back 16 Feb 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Feb15 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

34678910111213141516

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

The weather it burned in

31°high

26km/h · peak gust

25%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 21 Feb.

This area had burned before

86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,053 ha in 2021, 175 ha in 2022, 2,529 ha in 2024, 1,216 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,032 ha that had burned before.

2,529 ha Mongkaing fire, February 2024 3,164 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Mongkaing where it started

3,016 ha

0.8 %
Lawksawk

539 ha

0.1 %

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)
3 Feb	28.3 °C	43 %	16 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
4 Feb	27.9 °C	38 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
5 Feb	28.4 °C	41 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
6 Feb	27.9 °C	39 %	17 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
7 Feb	28.7 °C	34 %	16 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
8 Feb	29.8 °C	34 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 21
9 Feb	29.2 °C	30 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
10 Feb	29.5 °C	35 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
11 Feb	29.7 °C	37 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
12 Feb	29.9 °C	29 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
13 Feb	30.2 °C	26 %	17 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
14 Feb	30.6 °C	25 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
15 Feb	30.8 °C	27 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
16 Feb after	30.8 °C	23 %	14 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
17 Feb after	31.4 °C	25 %	16 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
18 Feb after	32.4 °C	26 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
19 Feb after	32.2 °C	33 %	24 km/h	0.2 mm	High 28
20 Feb after	31.9 °C	38 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
21 Feb after	31.2 °C	37 %	28 km/h	1.3 mm	Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 27 Jan 2026

After · 22 Feb 2026

Before After

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 16 February 2026 the air beside the fire reached 90 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 62: 4.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak90 µg/m³

Days over the guideline18 days

PM1093 µg/m³

Optical depth0.52

WHO 15

123456789101112131415161718

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 · 0Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Myanmar (Burma) ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mongkaing fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 February 2026 and 15 February 2026: 13 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 3,531 hectares (35.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mongkaing (3,016 ha, 0.8 %); Lawksawk (539 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 30.8 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 26 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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.

Where it burned