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Mongping fire, 23 March 2026 Mongping

Out · last detection 30 Mar 2026, 18:42 UTC

The fire started on 23 March 2026 in Mongping, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,695 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 405th largest in Shan since 2016 (of 723 with a page). Number 261 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2026, of 418.

The power measured by the satellite is low (17.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
2,695ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
23 Mar 2026 – 30 Mar 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
23 Mar
2026
Heat detections
78
in a single hotspot: 17 MW
Danger at start
9
Low · FWI index
Energy released
430MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

30 Mar 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Mar30 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

232426272830

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
42km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.1 mm on 7 Apr.

This area had burned before

97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,192 ha in 2016, 660 ha in 2019, 1,686 ha in 2020, 2,009 ha in 2021, 1,000 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,607 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mongping where it started
    2,714 ha reached on 19 Mar
    0.4 %

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 29.8 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
24 Mar 29.4 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
25 Mar 30.7 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
26 Mar 30.9 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
27 Mar 30.6 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
28 Mar 32.5 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
29 Mar 30.3 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
30 Mar 31.6 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
31 Mar after 31.2 °C 34 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
1 Apr after 31.0 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
2 Apr after 31.8 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
3 Apr after 33.4 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
4 Apr after 33.7 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
5 Apr after 33.0 °C 32 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
6 Apr after 32.3 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
7 Apr after 32.0 °C 34 % 38 km/h 4.1 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Mar 2026
After · 6 Apr 2026

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 27 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 106 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 70: 4.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak106 µg/m³
Days over the guideline13 days
PM10128 µg/m³
Optical depth1.20
212223242526272829303112
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 · 78Every 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 2026 and 30 March 2026: 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 2,695 hectares (27.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mongping (2,714 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.5 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 23, 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.