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Mongton fire, 1 March 2021 Mongton

Out · last detection 9 Mar 2021, 19:06 UTC

The fire started on 1 March 2021 in Mongton, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,071 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 128th largest in Shan since 2016 (of 723 with a page). Number 27 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2021, of 159.

The power measured by the satellite is low (19.7 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
5,071ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
1 Mar 2021 – 8 Mar 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
1 Mar
2021
Heat detections
204
in a single hotspot: 20 MW
Danger at start
19
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
625MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Mar 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Mar8 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

123456789

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
49km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

56% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 42 ha in 2016, 12 ha in 2017, 14 ha in 2018, 2,318 ha in 2019, 1,601 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,816 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mongton where it started
    5,086 ha reached on 28 Feb
    1.0 %

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)
1 Mar 31.2 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
2 Mar 31.3 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
3 Mar 30.6 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
4 Mar 32.3 °C 18 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
5 Mar 31.3 °C 14 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Mar 31.1 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
7 Mar 31.4 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
8 Mar 31.4 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
9 Mar after 32.0 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
10 Mar after 31.5 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
11 Mar after 32.3 °C 26 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
12 Mar after 31.9 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
13 Mar after 33.0 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
14 Mar after 32.8 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Mar after 33.8 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
16 Mar after 34.3 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
17 Mar after 34.5 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Mar after 35.3 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Feb 2021
After · 15 Mar 2021

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 · 204Every 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 1 March 2021 and 8 March 2021: 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 5,071 hectares (50.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mongton (5,086 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.3 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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.