Mongpan fire, 26 February 2021 Mongpan, Langkho
The fire started on 26 February 2021 in Mongpan, Myanmar, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,887 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 164th largest in Shan since 2016 (of 806 with a page). Number 36 in Myanmar in 2021, of 190.
The power measured by the satellite is low (28.0 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…
- Burnt area
- 4,887ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 22days
- 26 Feb 2021 – 19 Mar 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 26 Feb
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 172
- in a single hotspot: 28 MW
- Danger at start
- 25
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 45MW
- 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. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 22 Mar.
This area had burned before
65% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,780 ha in 2017, 2,777 ha in 2019, 1,242 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,166 ha that had burned before.
- 1,571 ha Langkho fire, March 2019 2,244 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 941 ha Mongpan fire, February 2020 4,540 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 176 ha Mongton fire, February 2017 2,030 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 125 ha Mongpan fire, March 2019 20,728 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 42 ha Mongpan fire, February 2017 3,133 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
-
Mongpan where it started2,611 ha reached on 26 Feb1.0 %
-
2,294 ha reached on 26 Feb0.4 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Mar | 32.2 °C | 19 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 5 Mar | 31.1 °C | 15 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 6 Mar | 30.9 °C | 17 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 7 Mar | 31.1 °C | 20 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 8 Mar | 31.3 °C | 21 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 9 Mar | 32.0 °C | 22 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 10 Mar | 31.6 °C | 27 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 11 Mar | 32.4 °C | 26 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 12 Mar | 31.9 °C | 27 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 13 Mar | 33.1 °C | 19 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 14 Mar | 32.9 °C | 26 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 15 Mar | 33.7 °C | 24 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 16 Mar | 34.3 °C | 20 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 17 Mar | 34.5 °C | 23 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 18 Mar | 35.2 °C | 21 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 19 Mar | 35.2 °C | 24 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 20 Mar after | 35.5 °C | 23 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 21 Mar after | 36.5 °C | 20 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 22 Mar after | 33.6 °C | 31 % | 42 km/h | 1.0 mm | High 23 |
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 · 172Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 28,680 haMongton17 March 2026 · 23 days · 7 km away
- 21,035 haLangkho12 February 2024 · 36 days · 7 km away
- 20,728 haMongpanMarch 2019 · 32 days · 13 km away
- 13,153 haLangkho18 March 2026 · 24 days · 21 km away
- 8,288 haLangkho28 February 2020 · 16 days · 23 km away
- 11,795 haLangkho22 March 2026 · 20 days · 24 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mongpan fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 February 2021 to 19 March 2021 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 March 2021 to 12 March 2021.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,887 hectares (48.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mongpan (2,611 ha, 1.0 %); Langkho (2,294 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.4 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 27, 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: 12 March 2021 → 19 March 2021.
- Start date: 4 March 2021 → 26 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 4 March 2021 to 12 March 2021. 172 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.