Mongping fire, 17 March 2020 Mongping
The fire started on 17 March 2020 in Mongping, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,562 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 455th largest in Shan since 2016 (of 723 with a page). Number 110 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2020, of 166.
- Burnt area
- 2,562ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 17 Mar 2020 – 20 Mar 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 17 Mar
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 73
- in a single hotspot: 151 MW
- Energy released
- 520MW
- sum of detected power
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.
This area had burned before
82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 921 ha in 2016, 1,804 ha in 2017, 1,176 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,089 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
Mongping where it started2,568 ha reached on 16 Mar0.4 %
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.
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 · 73Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 22,833 haMongping24 March 2019 · 21 days · 21 km away
- 41,742 haMongton21 March 2026 · 25 days · 22 km away
- 27,764 haMongping22 March 2023 · 11 days · 22 km away
- 22,039 haMongping19 March 2020 · 15 days · 31 km away
- 19,688 haMongping15 March 2021 · 16 days · 31 km away
- 23,002 haMongping20 March 2026 · 17 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mongping fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 March 2020 and 20 March 2020: 4 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 2,562 hectares (25.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Mongping (2,568 ha, 0.4 %).
- 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.
Report an error
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.