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MM · Myanmar · –

Myawaddy fire, 22 February 2026 Myawaddy

Out · last detection 22 Mar 2026, 19:33 UTC

The fire started on 22 February 2026 in Myawaddy, Myanmar, and satellites saw it burning for 28 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 28,704 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

Number 11 in Myanmar in 2026, of 480.

GWIS near-real-time perimeter, from the layer that changed in October 2025: this fire is not compared with fires from earlier years, because since then the GWIS layer gives more and larger perimeters.

Burnt area
28,704ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
28days
22 Feb 2026 – 21 Mar 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
22 Feb
2026
Heat detections
891
in a single hotspot: 141 MW
Danger at start
15
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
318MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Feb21 Mar
22 Mar 2026

How it evolved, day by day

22 Feb 2026 · 22 MW · 3 23 Feb 2026 · 11 MW · 2 24 Feb 2026 · 6 MW · 1 25 Feb 2026 · 19 MW · 1 26 Feb 2026 · 2 MW · 2 27 Feb 2026 · 2 MW · 1 28 Feb 2026 · 85 MW · 9 1 Mar 2026 · 305 MW · 15 2 Mar 2026 · 194 MW · 30 3 Mar 2026 · 314 MW · 69 4 Mar 2026 · 433 MW · 36 5 Mar 2026 · 244 MW · 37 6 Mar 2026 · 338 MW · 30 7 Mar 2026 · 662 MW · 61 8 Mar 2026 · 1,066 MW · 95 9 Mar 2026 · 1,568 MW · 136 10 Mar 2026 · 377 MW · 98 11 Mar 2026 · 994 MW · 69 13 Mar 2026 · 91 MW · 13 14 Mar 2026 · 31 MW · 7 15 Mar 2026 · 208 MW · 5 16 Mar 2026 · 115 MW · 11 17 Mar 2026 · 126 MW · 22 18 Mar 2026 · 224 MW · 25 19 Mar 2026 · 166 MW · 19 20 Mar 2026 · 444 MW · 21 21 Mar 2026 · 654 MW · 38 22 Mar 2026 · 204 MW · 35
22 Feb 28 Feb 9 Mar 19 Mar

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
40km/h · peak gust
35%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 26,285 ha in 2016, 19,872 ha in 2017, 16,026 ha in 2018, 26,857 ha in 2019, 22,645 ha in 2020, 22,977 ha in 2021, 3,929 ha in 2022, 15,857 ha in 2023, 18,151 ha in 2024, 19,700 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 28,780 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 18% of the area of London (287 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Myawaddy where it started
    27,852 ha reached on 22 Feb
    8.8 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area4.5 ha
Residents≈ 1,700

Inside the perimeter there were about 4.5 hectares of built-up land and about 1,700 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
22 Feb 29.7 °C 61 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
23 Feb 32.3 °C 47 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 18
24 Feb 31.4 °C 53 % 20 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 17
25 Feb 30.0 °C 57 % 26 km/h 1.0 mm Low 10
26 Feb 30.5 °C 54 % 31 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 12
27 Feb 30.2 °C 58 % 31 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 11
28 Feb 30.8 °C 55 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
1 Mar 31.2 °C 48 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
2 Mar 31.8 °C 39 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
3 Mar 31.7 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
4 Mar 32.3 °C 42 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
5 Mar 31.6 °C 48 % 24 km/h 0.3 mm High 22
6 Mar 32.0 °C 44 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
7 Mar 31.9 °C 54 % 18 km/h 1.3 mm Low 10
8 Mar 32.9 °C 45 % 17 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 16
9 Mar 32.7 °C 44 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
10 Mar 31.1 °C 50 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
11 Mar 32.0 °C 49 % 18 km/h 2.7 mm Low 6
12 Mar 29.9 °C 53 % 19 km/h 5.6 mm Very low 2
13 Mar 27.4 °C 63 % 30 km/h 1.6 mm Very low 4
14 Mar 29.3 °C 56 % 25 km/h 0.6 mm Low 7
15 Mar 30.4 °C 51 % 22 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 11
16 Mar 30.4 °C 56 % 20 km/h 1.9 mm Very low 4
17 Mar 30.3 °C 54 % 25 km/h 0.6 mm Low 10
18 Mar 32.5 °C 42 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
19 Mar 31.7 °C 47 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
20 Mar 31.9 °C 44 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
21 Mar 32.9 °C 44 % 20 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 18
22 Mar after 32.0 °C 52 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 19
23 Mar after 32.6 °C 47 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
24 Mar after 33.9 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
25 Mar after 34.1 °C 40 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
26 Mar after 35.0 °C 41 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
27 Mar after 34.3 °C 42 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
28 Mar after 34.2 °C 41 % 28 km/h 0.3 mm High 24
29 Mar after 32.7 °C 48 % 28 km/h 0.5 mm High 22
30 Mar after 33.5 °C 46 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
31 Mar after 33.9 °C 43 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 26

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Feb 2026
After · 28 Mar 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 5 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 73 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 55: 3.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak73 µg/m³
Days over the guideline18 days
PM1077 µg/m³
Optical depth0.85
26 Feb2 Mar6 Mar10 Mar14 Mar
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 · 891Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Myawaddy fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 22 February 2026 to 21 March 2026 (28 days). The perimeter dates it from 28 February 2026 to 14 March 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 28,704 hectares (287.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Myawaddy (27,852 ha, 8.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.9 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Myanmar (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

History of this page · 3 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Area: 29,428 → 28,704 ha.
  2. Last day with fire: 14 March 2026 → 21 March 2026.
  3. Start date: 28 February 2026 → 22 February 2026.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 4 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 28 February 2026 to 14 March 2026. 891 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.