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Mongping fire, 25 March 2023 Mongping

Out · last detection 1 Apr 2023, 06:20 UTC

The fire started on 25 March 2023 in Mongping, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,082 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 305th largest in Shan since 2016 (of 723 with a page). Number 90 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2023, of 212.

Burnt area
3,082ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
25 Mar 2023 – 1 Apr 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
25 Mar
2023
Heat detections
106
in a single hotspot: 71 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Apr 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Mar1 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

252627282930311

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
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 185 ha in 2019, 2,300 ha in 2020, 858 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,512 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mongping where it started
    3,102 ha reached on 23 Mar
    0.5 %

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)
25 Mar 31.7 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
26 Mar 32.3 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Mar 33.4 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
28 Mar 33.1 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
29 Mar 30.5 °C 31 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
30 Mar 32.3 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
31 Mar 32.4 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
1 Apr 33.4 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Apr after 32.9 °C 22 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Apr after 31.3 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Apr after 31.4 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Apr after 33.8 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Apr after 33.8 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
7 Apr after 34.7 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Apr after 35.7 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Apr after 36.3 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Apr after 36.7 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Apr after 35.5 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 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 · 106Every 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 25 March 2023 and 1 April 2023: 8 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 3,082 hectares (30.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mongping (3,102 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.4 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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.