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Mongping fire, 23 March 2023 Mongping, Monghsat

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

The fire started on 23 March 2023 in Mongping, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,446 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 43th largest in Shan since 2016 (of 723 with a page). Number 11 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2023, of 212.

Burnt area
10,446ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
23 Mar 2023 – 1 Apr 2023
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
23 Mar
2023
Heat detections
424
in a single hotspot: 338 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
4.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Apr 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Mar1 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

23242526272829303112

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
38km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

43% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 852 ha in 2016, 2,261 ha in 2017, 2,463 ha in 2019, 1,602 ha in 2020, 1,257 ha in 2021, 1,354 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,470 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mongping where it started
    10,428 ha reached on 16 Mar
    1.7 %
  2. Monghsat
    40 ha
    0.0 %

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)
23 Mar 32.2 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
24 Mar 31.5 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
25 Mar 31.9 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
26 Mar 32.6 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
27 Mar 33.9 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
28 Mar 34.2 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
29 Mar 31.3 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
30 Mar 32.3 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
31 Mar 33.2 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Apr 34.3 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Apr after 33.2 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Apr after 32.5 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
4 Apr after 31.6 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Apr after 33.4 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Apr after 33.9 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
7 Apr after 34.5 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Apr after 36.0 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Apr after 36.5 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
10 Apr after 36.6 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
11 Apr after 35.2 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 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 · 424Every 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 23 March 2023 and 1 April 2023: 10 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 10,446 hectares (104.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mongping (10,428 ha, 1.7 %); Monghsat (40 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.3 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 38 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.