Mongping fire, 27 March 2024 Mongping
The fire started on 27 March 2024 in Mongping, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,495 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 80th largest in Shan since 2016 (of 723 with a page). Number 23 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2024, of 161.
- Burnt area
- 6,495ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 11days
- 27 Mar 2024 – 6 Apr 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 27 Mar
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 301
- in a single hotspot: 124 MW
- Danger at start
- 30
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 3.8GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 15 Apr.
This area had burned before
95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,983 ha in 2016, 1,925 ha in 2017, 2,861 ha in 2018, 2,985 ha in 2019, 5,101 ha in 2020, 1,311 ha in 2021, 1,454 ha in 2022, 4,951 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,163 ha that had burned before.
- 5,101 ha Mongping fire, March 2020 7,428 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,951 ha Mongping fire, March 2023 27,764 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,861 ha Mongping fire, April 2018 3,647 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,983 ha Mongping fire, March 2016 2,505 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,925 ha Mongping fire, April 2017 2,387 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,311 ha Mongping fire, March 2021 19,688 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Mongping where it started6,522 ha reached on 27 Mar1.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 Mar | 34.0 °C | 22 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 28 Mar | 32.5 °C | 23 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 29 Mar | 32.1 °C | 27 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 30 Mar | 32.8 °C | 27 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 31 Mar | 35.1 °C | 22 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 1 Apr | 35.5 °C | 21 % | 48 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 35 |
| 2 Apr | 35.1 °C | 21 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 3 Apr | 36.0 °C | 24 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 4 Apr | 37.3 °C | 21 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 5 Apr | 36.8 °C | 21 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 6 Apr | 38.1 °C | 23 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 7 Apr after | 37.4 °C | 26 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 8 Apr after | 37.1 °C | 26 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 9 Apr after | 37.7 °C | 24 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 10 Apr after | 36.7 °C | 26 % | 30 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 36 |
| 11 Apr after | 35.7 °C | 24 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 12 Apr after | 35.1 °C | 27 % | 27 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 40 |
| 13 Apr after | 35.7 °C | 26 % | 33 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 37 |
| 14 Apr after | 34.9 °C | 29 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 15 Apr after | 33.5 °C | 33 % | 31 km/h | 1.3 mm | High 21 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 2 April 2024 the air beside the fire reached 55 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 41: 2.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 301Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 23,002 haMongping20 March 2026 · 17 days · 8 km away
- 19,688 haMongping15 March 2021 · 16 days · 14 km away
- 22,039 haMongping19 March 2020 · 15 days · 19 km away
- 27,764 haMongping22 March 2023 · 11 days · 22 km away
- 22,833 haMongping24 March 2019 · 21 days · 22 km away
- 44,192 haKunhing18 March 2026 · 21 days · 25 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mongping fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 March 2024 and 6 April 2024: 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 6,495 hectares (65.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Mongping (6,522 ha, 1.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.1 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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.
Report an error
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.