Mongping fire, 18 March 2026 Mongping, Kunhing
The fire started on 18 March 2026 in Mongping, Myanmar, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 44,192 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 3th largest in Shan since 2016 (of 806 with a page). Number 7 in Myanmar in 2026, of 480.
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- Burnt area
- 44,192ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 21days
- 18 Mar 2026 – 7 Apr 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 18 Mar
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 1,510
- in a single hotspot: 174 MW
- Danger at start
- 3
- Very low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 648MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 0 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: 9,746 ha in 2016, 12,343 ha in 2017, 3,498 ha in 2018, 12,068 ha in 2019, 18,751 ha in 2020, 17,076 ha in 2021, 19,315 ha in 2023, 14,844 ha in 2024, 8,262 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 36,297 ha that had burned before.
- 14,316 ha Mongping fire, March 2020 18,378 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 10,411 ha Mongping fire, March 2021 11,132 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 9,708 ha Mongping fire, March 2023 10,947 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 8,718 ha Mongping fire, March 2024 9,790 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,660 ha Mongping fire, April 2017 8,474 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,138 ha Mongping fire, March 2023 4,701 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,230 ha Mongping fire, March 2021 3,724 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,093 ha Mongping fire, April 2019 3,667 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Mongping where it started41,588 ha6.9 %
-
2,850 ha1.0 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 Mar | 26.3 °C | 55 % | 36 km/h | 3.1 mm | Very low 3 |
| 14 Mar | 29.0 °C | 46 % | 35 km/h | 2.9 mm | Very low 3 |
| 15 Mar | 29.1 °C | 47 % | 31 km/h | 0.2 mm | Low 7 |
| 16 Mar | 29.5 °C | 39 % | 27 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 17 Mar | 30.4 °C | 37 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 18 Mar | 32.6 °C | 29 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 19 Mar | 33.3 °C | 26 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 21 |
| 20 Mar | 32.2 °C | 30 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 21 Mar | 34.5 °C | 28 % | 36 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 23 |
| 22 Mar | 30.4 °C | 47 % | 41 km/h | 9.4 mm | Very low 2 |
| 23 Mar | 33.0 °C | 22 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 24 Mar | 32.2 °C | 32 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 25 Mar | 33.4 °C | 28 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 26 Mar | 33.5 °C | 29 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 27 Mar | 33.6 °C | 29 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 28 Mar | 35.8 °C | 24 % | 45 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 26 |
| 29 Mar | 33.8 °C | 25 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 30 Mar | 34.6 °C | 28 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 31 Mar | 33.9 °C | 33 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 1 Apr | 34.3 °C | 35 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 2 Apr | 34.9 °C | 31 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 3 Apr | 36.3 °C | 26 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 4 Apr | 36.7 °C | 25 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 5 Apr | 35.7 °C | 33 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 6 Apr | 35.6 °C | 32 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 7 Apr | 35.9 °C | 32 % | 34 km/h | 4.1 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 8 Apr after | 34.0 °C | 37 % | 36 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 9 Apr after | 32.0 °C | 42 % | 32 km/h | 0.9 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 10 Apr after | 32.0 °C | 37 % | 44 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 22 |
| 11 Apr after | 33.7 °C | 32 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 12 Apr after | 35.1 °C | 24 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 13 Apr after | 35.8 °C | 25 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 14 Apr after | 36.5 °C | 23 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 15 Apr after | 36.6 °C | 31 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 16 Apr after | 34.5 °C | 30 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 17 Apr after | 36.2 °C | 27 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 18 Apr after | 35.3 °C | 32 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 19 Apr after | 35.7 °C | 30 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 20 Apr after | 33.0 °C | 42 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 21 Apr after | 37.5 °C | 26 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 22 Apr after | 36.8 °C | 30 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 23 Apr after | 33.6 °C | 33 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 24 Apr after | 38.2 °C | 24 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
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 26 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 129 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 81: 5.4 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 · 1,510Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mongping fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 March 2026 and 7 April 2026: 21 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 44,192 hectares (441.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mongping (41,588 ha, 6.9 %); Kunhing (2,850 ha, 1.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, class High.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Myanmar (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
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 4 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 1,510 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.