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Mongton fire, 12 March 2020 Mongton, Monghsat

Out · last detection 27 Mar 2020, 19:12 UTC

The fire started on 12 March 2020 in Mongton, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,206 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 53th largest in Shan since 2016 (of 723 with a page). Number 13 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2020, of 166.

Burnt area
8,206ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
12 Mar 2020 – 26 Mar 2020
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
12 Mar
2020
Heat detections
440
in a single hotspot: 394 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
5.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Mar 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Mar26 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

12131415161718192021222324252627

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
46km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

57% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,615 ha in 2016, 1,829 ha in 2017, 412 ha in 2018, 3,653 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,687 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mongton where it started
    4,178 ha reached on 8 Mar
    0.8 %
  2. Monghsat
    4,067 ha reached on 11 Mar
    0.9 %

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)
12 Mar 35.1 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
13 Mar 35.2 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Mar 34.6 °C 24 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Mar 36.2 °C 24 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Mar 35.2 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Mar 36.0 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Mar 35.8 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Mar 34.0 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Mar 34.8 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 41
21 Mar 32.8 °C 27 % 46 km/h 1.1 mm High 28
22 Mar 32.4 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.4 mm High 33
23 Mar 33.2 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Mar 33.9 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Mar 34.4 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Mar 34.5 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Mar after 35.0 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Mar after 35.6 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
29 Mar after 36.4 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Mar after 37.2 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
31 Mar after 37.2 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Apr after 37.7 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Apr after 36.8 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Apr after 37.1 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Apr after 37.0 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Apr after 36.0 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Mar 2020
After · 2 Apr 2020

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 · 440Every 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 Mongton fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 March 2020 and 26 March 2020: 15 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 8,206 hectares (82.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mongton (4,178 ha, 0.8 %); Monghsat (4,067 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, class Very 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.