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Mongton fire, 16 February 2024 Mongton, Langkho, Mongpan

Out · last detection 17 Mar 2024, 19:07 UTC

The fire started on 16 February 2024 in Mongton, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 30 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 21,035 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 18th largest in Shan since 2016 (of 723 with a page). Number 4 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2024, of 161.

Burnt area
21,035ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
30days
16 Feb 2024 – 16 Mar 2024
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
16 Feb
2024
Heat detections
1,114
in a single hotspot: 48 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Mar 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Feb16 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

16171819202122232425262728291234567891011121314151617

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
48km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 20 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 20 Mar.

This area had burned before

89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,207 ha in 2016, 5,074 ha in 2017, 2,711 ha in 2018, 12,014 ha in 2019, 11,174 ha in 2020, 7,332 ha in 2021, 2,763 ha in 2022, 7,617 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 18,772 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mongton where it started
    19,479 ha reached on 12 Feb
    3.8 %
  2. Langkho
    1,063 ha reached on 14 Feb
    0.2 %
  3. Mongpan
    562 ha reached on 17 Feb
    0.2 %

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)
16 Feb 36.9 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Feb 36.0 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Feb 36.1 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 Feb 36.1 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 Feb 35.9 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Feb 35.6 °C 27 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
22 Feb 37.0 °C 24 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Feb 37.0 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Feb 37.3 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Feb 38.7 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Feb 38.8 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Feb 39.5 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Feb 38.6 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Feb 38.4 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Mar 38.3 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 Mar 39.3 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
3 Mar 37.4 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Mar 38.8 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
5 Mar 38.3 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
6 Mar 38.1 °C 25 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Mar 38.1 °C 29 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Mar 39.3 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Mar 39.2 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
10 Mar 38.9 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Mar 39.3 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Mar 38.2 °C 27 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Mar 38.6 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Mar 37.2 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Mar 37.8 °C 26 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
16 Mar 38.7 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
17 Mar after 38.8 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Mar after 39.4 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 Mar after 39.6 °C 24 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 Mar after 36.1 °C 44 % 36 km/h 2.5 mm Moderate 14

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Feb 2024
After · 23 Mar 2024

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 8 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 67 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 47: 3.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak67 µg/m³
Days over the guideline23 days
PM1097 µg/m³
Optical depth2.02
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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 · 1,114Every 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 16 February 2024 and 16 March 2024: 30 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 21,035 hectares (210.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Mongton (19,479 ha, 3.8 %); Langkho (1,063 ha, 0.2 %); Mongpan (562 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.5 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.