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Mongping fire, 17 March 2021 Mongping

Out · last detection 26 Mar 2021, 06:17 UTC

The fire started on 17 March 2021 in Mongping, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,724 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 216th largest in Shan since 2016 (of 723 with a page). Number 47 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2021, of 159.

Burnt area
3,724ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
17 Mar 2021 – 25 Mar 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
17 Mar
2021
Heat detections
155
in a single hotspot: 79 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Mar 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Mar25 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

1719202122232526

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
47km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 25 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 4 Apr.

This area had burned before

73% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,532 ha in 2016, 1,215 ha in 2017, 1,474 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,723 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mongping where it started
    3,746 ha reached on 17 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)
17 Mar 37.3 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
18 Mar 38.0 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Mar 38.0 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Mar 38.4 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Mar 39.0 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Mar 36.8 °C 24 % 47 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 38
23 Mar 35.7 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
24 Mar 35.7 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
25 Mar 38.2 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Mar after 36.8 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Mar after 38.2 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Mar after 37.5 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Mar after 35.4 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
30 Mar after 36.6 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Mar after 38.2 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
1 Apr after 38.0 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
2 Apr after 38.9 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Apr after 34.9 °C 26 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Apr after 26.4 °C 40 % 18 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 15

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Mar 2021
After · 1 Apr 2021

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 · 155Every 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 17 March 2021 and 25 March 2021: 9 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 3,724 hectares (37.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mongping (3,746 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.0 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.