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Mongping fire, 22 March 2023 Mongping

Out · last detection 2 Apr 2023, 18:31 UTC

The fire started on 22 March 2023 in Mongping, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 27,764 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 8th largest in Shan since 2016 (of 723 with a page). Number 4 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2023, of 212.

Burnt area
27,764ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
22 Mar 2023 – 1 Apr 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
22 Mar
2023
Heat detections
1,121
in a single hotspot: 254 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
14.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Apr 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Mar1 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

2223242526272829303112

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
44km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

87% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,038 ha in 2016, 6,250 ha in 2017, 4,302 ha in 2018, 15,743 ha in 2019, 18,044 ha in 2020, 14,236 ha in 2021, 1,364 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 24,218 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mongping where it started
    27,872 ha reached on 21 Mar
    4.6 %

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)
22 Mar 31.5 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
23 Mar 31.3 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
24 Mar 30.6 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
25 Mar 31.0 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
26 Mar 31.7 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Mar 33.0 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
28 Mar 33.3 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
29 Mar 30.4 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Mar 31.4 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
31 Mar 32.3 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
1 Apr 33.4 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Apr after 32.3 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Apr after 31.6 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Apr after 30.7 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Apr after 32.5 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Apr after 33.0 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Apr after 33.6 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Apr after 35.1 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Apr after 35.6 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Apr after 35.7 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Apr after 34.3 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Mar 2023
After · 8 Apr 2023

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 · 1,121Every 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 22 March 2023 and 1 April 2023: 11 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 27,764 hectares (277.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mongping (27,872 ha, 4.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.4 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class 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.