How long did the Mongkaing fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 March 2026 and 1 April 2026: 10 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 3,668 hectares (36.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mongkaing (3,526 ha, 0.9 %); Hopong (154 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 34.9 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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) · 2026-03-23 → 2026-04-01

Mongkaing fire, 23 March 2026 Mongkaing, Hopong

Out · last detection 30 Mar 2026, 06:13 UTC

The fire started on 23 March 2026 in Mongkaing, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,668 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 220th largest in Shan since 2016 (of 723 with a page). Number 161 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2026, of 418.

The power measured by the satellite is low (24.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 3,668ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 10days; 23 Mar 2026 – 1 Apr 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 23 Mar; 2026
Heat detections: 69; in a single hotspot: 24 MW
Danger at start: 24; High · FWI index
Energy released: 446MW; sum of detected power

Play back 30 Mar 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Mar1 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

2324252627282930

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

46km/h · peak gust

25%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 6 Apr.

This area had burned before

47% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 368 ha in 2016, 780 ha in 2021, 693 ha in 2023, 503 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,726 ha that had burned before.

503 ha Lawksawk fire, February 2025 38,375 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Mongkaing where it started

3,526 ha reached on 23 Mar

0.9 %
Hopong

154 ha reached on 28 Mar

0.0 %

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)
23 Mar	32.7 °C	25 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
24 Mar	32.3 °C	30 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
25 Mar	34.5 °C	27 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
26 Mar	34.5 °C	26 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
27 Mar	34.2 °C	29 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
28 Mar	34.8 °C	28 %	46 km/h	0.1 mm	High 33
29 Mar	32.9 °C	31 %	45 km/h	0.1 mm	High 34
30 Mar	34.4 °C	31 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
31 Mar	34.9 °C	30 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
1 Apr	33.9 °C	36 %	41 km/h	0.1 mm	High 32
2 Apr after	36.0 °C	29 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
3 Apr after	36.6 °C	28 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
4 Apr after	36.5 °C	27 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
5 Apr after	36.0 °C	32 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
6 Apr after	34.5 °C	37 %	33 km/h	1.5 mm	Moderate 20

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 16 Mar 2026

After · 8 Apr 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 26 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 108 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 53: 3.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak108 µg/m³

Days over the guideline14 days

PM10115 µg/m³

Optical depth0.92

WHO 15

21222324252627282930311234

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 · 69Every 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 23 March 2026 and 1 April 2026: 10 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 3,668 hectares (36.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mongkaing (3,526 ha, 0.9 %); Hopong (154 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 34.9 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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.

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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