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Mongping fire, 5 April 2019 Mongping

Out · last detection 17 Apr 2019, 06:11 UTC

The fire started on 5 April 2019 in Mongping, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,667 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 221th largest in Shan since 2016 (of 723 with a page). Number 34 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2019, of 141.

Burnt area
3,667ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
5 Apr 2019 – 16 Apr 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
5 Apr
2019
Heat detections
167
in a single hotspot: 69 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
840MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Apr 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Apr16 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

567891011121314151617

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
42km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 27 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 23 Apr.

This area had burned before

66% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,406 ha in 2016, 2,070 ha in 2017, 230 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,435 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mongping where it started
    3,687 ha reached on 29 Mar
    0.6 %

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)
5 Apr 34.2 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 Apr 34.1 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
7 Apr 34.8 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 38
8 Apr 34.4 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Apr 34.0 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 38
10 Apr 34.6 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
11 Apr 34.1 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
12 Apr 35.0 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
13 Apr 36.0 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Apr 36.2 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
15 Apr 36.0 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Apr 37.3 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
17 Apr after 36.7 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Apr after 36.7 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Apr after 36.5 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Apr after 36.1 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
21 Apr after 35.7 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 42
22 Apr after 35.4 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Apr after 35.5 °C 25 % 48 km/h 1.4 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Mar 2019
After · 23 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 · 167Every 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 (Burma) ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mongping fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 April 2019 and 16 April 2019: 12 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 3,667 hectares (36.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mongping (3,687 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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 (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

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.