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Mongping fire, 11 March 2020 Mongping

Out · last detection 28 Mar 2020, 18:53 UTC

The fire started on 11 March 2020 in Mongping, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,428 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 61th largest in Shan since 2016 (of 723 with a page). Number 15 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2020, of 166.

Burnt area
7,428ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
17days
11 Mar 2020 – 27 Mar 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
11 Mar
2020
Heat detections
318
in a single hotspot: 127 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Mar 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Mar27 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

111213141516171819202122232425262728

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
44km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

77% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,074 ha in 2016, 1,885 ha in 2017, 3,215 ha in 2018, 3,512 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,684 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mongping where it started
    7,459 ha reached on 11 Mar
    1.2 %

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)
11 Mar 32.3 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Mar 32.8 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Mar 32.7 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Mar 32.7 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Mar 33.2 °C 22 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Mar 33.9 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Mar 33.9 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Mar 33.1 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Mar 31.4 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 Mar 32.4 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 41
21 Mar 30.7 °C 24 % 44 km/h 1.4 mm High 27
22 Mar 31.5 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Mar 30.2 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Mar 31.5 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Mar 31.6 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Mar 32.6 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Mar 32.4 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Mar after 33.3 °C 25 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Mar after 34.6 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
30 Mar after 35.0 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
31 Mar after 34.5 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
1 Apr after 35.3 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 Apr after 34.4 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Apr after 34.5 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Apr after 34.1 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Apr after 32.9 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Apr after 33.2 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Mar 2020
After · 3 Apr 2020

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 · 318Every 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 11 March 2020 and 27 March 2020: 17 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 7,428 hectares (74.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mongping (7,459 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.9 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 44 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.