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MM · Myanmar (Burma) · →

Mongton fire, 23 March 2020 Mongton

Out · last detection 4 Apr 2020, 05:52 UTC

The fire started on 23 March 2020 in Mongton, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,036 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 313th largest in Shan since 2016 (of 723 with a page). Number 87 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2020, of 166.

Burnt area
3,036ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
23 Mar 2020 – 3 Apr 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
23 Mar
2020
Heat detections
154
in a single hotspot: 116 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Apr 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Mar3 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

23252627282930311234

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
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

7% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 25 ha in 2016, 17 ha in 2017, 156 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Mongton where it started
    3,054 ha reached on 17 Mar
    0.6 %

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 30.9 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.2 mm High 26
24 Mar 32.5 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Mar 32.5 °C 19 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Mar 32.7 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Mar 33.5 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Mar 34.5 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Mar 35.0 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
30 Mar 35.7 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
31 Mar 36.0 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
1 Apr 36.3 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
2 Apr 35.2 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
3 Apr 35.6 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Apr after 35.2 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Apr after 34.3 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Apr after 34.3 °C 21 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Apr after 34.9 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Apr after 34.1 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Apr after 33.6 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
10 Apr after 34.7 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Apr after 33.4 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Apr after 33.6 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Apr after 33.7 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Mar 2020
After · 10 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 · 154Every 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 23 March 2020 and 3 April 2020: 12 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 3,036 hectares (30.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mongton (3,054 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.