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MM · Myanmar (Burma) · →

Mongping fire, 19 March 2020 Mongping

Out · last detection 3 Apr 2020, 18:40 UTC

The fire started on 19 March 2020 in Mongping, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 22,039 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 13th largest in Shan since 2016 (of 723 with a page). Number 6 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2020, of 166.

Burnt area
22,039ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
19 Mar 2020 – 2 Apr 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
19 Mar
2020
Heat detections
1,231
in a single hotspot: 268 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
9.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

3 Apr 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Mar2 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

19202122232425262728293031123

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
43km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

87% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,359 ha in 2016, 7,749 ha in 2017, 1,134 ha in 2018, 15,357 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 19,160 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mongping where it started
    22,117 ha reached on 12 Mar
    3.6 %

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)
19 Mar 31.1 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Mar 31.9 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
21 Mar 30.2 °C 27 % 43 km/h 1.7 mm Moderate 20
22 Mar 31.0 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
23 Mar 29.9 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
24 Mar 31.0 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
25 Mar 31.1 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Mar 32.1 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
27 Mar 32.1 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 Mar 33.1 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Mar 34.2 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Mar 34.8 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
31 Mar 34.4 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Apr 35.0 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
2 Apr 34.1 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
3 Apr after 34.2 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
4 Apr after 33.7 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Apr after 33.2 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Apr after 33.0 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Apr after 33.7 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Apr after 33.4 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Apr after 34.1 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Apr after 33.0 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Apr after 33.2 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Apr after 34.3 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Mar 2020
After · 9 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 · 1,231Every 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 19 March 2020 and 2 April 2020: 15 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 22,039 hectares (220.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mongping (22,117 ha, 3.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.0 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 43 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.