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Mongping fire, 29 March 2020 Mongping

Out · last detection 5 Apr 2020, 07:14 UTC

The fire started on 29 March 2020 in Mongping, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,888 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 200th largest in Shan since 2016 (of 723 with a page). Number 49 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2020, of 166.

Burnt area
3,888ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
29 Mar 2020 – 5 Apr 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
29 Mar
2020
Heat detections
162
in a single hotspot: 101 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Apr 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Mar5 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

29303112345

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
49km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.6 mm on 13 Apr.

This area had burned before

5% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 44 ha in 2016, 142 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Mongping where it started
    3,915 ha reached on 24 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)
29 Mar 35.0 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Mar 35.7 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
31 Mar 35.3 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Apr 35.7 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
2 Apr 34.6 °C 21 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Apr 35.2 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Apr 34.5 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Apr 34.0 °C 20 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Apr after 34.2 °C 20 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Apr after 34.6 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Apr after 34.7 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Apr after 35.4 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 44
10 Apr after 33.7 °C 29 % 47 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 41
11 Apr after 34.1 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
12 Apr after 35.0 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.8 mm High 33
13 Apr after 31.4 °C 39 % 35 km/h 3.6 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Mar 2020
After · 12 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 · 162Every 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 29 March 2020 and 5 April 2020: 8 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 3,888 hectares (38.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mongping (3,915 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.