How long did the Mongping fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 March 2026 and 28 March 2026: 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 4,373 hectares (43.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Mongping (4,399 ha, 0.7 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.9 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 21, class Moderate.

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.

MM · Myanmar (Burma) · 2026-03-19 → 2026-03-28

Mongping fire, 19 March 2026 Mongping

Out · last detection 29 Mar 2026, 06:31 UTC

The fire started on 19 March 2026 in Mongping, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,373 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 176th largest in Shan since 2016 (of 723 with a page). Number 136 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2026, of 418.

Burnt area: 4,373ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 10days; 19 Mar 2026 – 28 Mar 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 19 Mar; 2026
Heat detections: 67; in a single hotspot: 284 MW
Danger at start: 16; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 1.6GW; sum of detected power

Play back 29 Mar 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Mar28 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

202122232426272829

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

The weather it burned in

36°high

44km/h · peak gust

28%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.5 mm on 7 Apr.

This area had burned before

84% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 290 ha in 2016, 963 ha in 2017, 821 ha in 2018, 2,015 ha in 2019, 1,282 ha in 2020, 861 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,673 ha that had burned before.

1,896 ha Mongping fire, March 2019 2,591 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Mongping where it started

4,399 ha reached on 20 Mar

0.7 %

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)
19 Mar	33.8 °C	30 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
20 Mar	32.7 °C	34 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
21 Mar	34.6 °C	36 %	36 km/h	0.4 mm	Moderate 17
22 Mar	31.2 °C	54 %	44 km/h	9.1 mm	Very low 1
23 Mar	33.4 °C	28 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
24 Mar	33.1 °C	34 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
25 Mar	33.9 °C	29 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
26 Mar	33.9 °C	31 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
27 Mar	34.4 °C	31 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
28 Mar	35.9 °C	29 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
29 Mar after	33.7 °C	31 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
30 Mar after	34.9 °C	32 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
31 Mar after	34.7 °C	36 %	37 km/h	0.1 mm	High 22
1 Apr after	34.2 °C	38 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
2 Apr after	35.2 °C	36 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
3 Apr after	36.6 °C	29 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
4 Apr after	37.0 °C	29 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
5 Apr after	36.1 °C	37 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
6 Apr after	36.0 °C	34 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
7 Apr after	35.8 °C	38 %	39 km/h	5.5 mm	Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 12 Mar 2026

After · 4 Apr 2026

Before After

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 · Copernicus

On 26 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 108 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 59: 3.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak108 µg/m³

Days over the guideline15 days

PM10120 µg/m³

Optical depth1.14

WHO 15

171819202122232425262728293031

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 67Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Myanmar (Burma) ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mongping fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 March 2026 and 28 March 2026: 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 4,373 hectares (43.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Mongping (4,399 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.9 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 21, class Moderate.
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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

Where it burned