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Paletwa fire, 29 March 2023 Paletwa, Kyauktaw

Out · last detection 27 Apr 2023, 19:02 UTC

The fire started on 29 March 2023 in Paletwa, Myanmar, and satellites saw it burning for 30 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 77,924 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 3th largest in Chin since 2016 (of 242 with a page). Number 2 in Myanmar in 2023, of 240.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Paletwa · 2026Paletwa · 2020Paletwa · 2023Kyauktaw · 2023

Burnt area
77,924ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
30days
29 Mar 2023 – 27 Apr 2023
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
29 Mar
2023
Heat detections
4,192
in a single hotspot: 249 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Average daily power
2.0GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Mar27 Apr
27 Apr 2023

How it evolved, day by day

29 Mar 2023 · 9 MW · 2 30 Mar 2023 · 1,417 MW · 91 31 Mar 2023 · 219 MW · 5 3 Apr 2023 · 23 MW · 2 4 Apr 2023 · 8 MW · 1 5 Apr 2023 · 10 MW · 2 6 Apr 2023 · 359 MW · 13 7 Apr 2023 · 2,210 MW · 86 8 Apr 2023 · 6,488 MW · 366 9 Apr 2023 · 5,703 MW · 612 10 Apr 2023 · 6,742 MW · 642 11 Apr 2023 · 8,361 MW · 426 12 Apr 2023 · 3,982 MW · 350 13 Apr 2023 · 3,135 MW · 357 14 Apr 2023 · 7,637 MW · 583 15 Apr 2023 · 3,608 MW · 423 16 Apr 2023 · 303 MW · 30 17 Apr 2023 · 31 MW · 5 18 Apr 2023 · 366 MW · 36 19 Apr 2023 · 148 MW · 22 20 Apr 2023 · 95 MW · 20 21 Apr 2023 · 34 MW · 5 22 Apr 2023 · 8 MW · 1 25 Apr 2023 · 47 MW · 17 26 Apr 2023 · 261 MW · 63 27 Apr 2023 · 250 MW · 32
29 Mar 4 Apr 8 Apr 11 Apr 12 Apr 16 Apr 20 Apr 26 Apr

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
40km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

34% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,154 ha in 2016, 858 ha in 2017, 2,487 ha in 2018, 1,655 ha in 2019, 9,996 ha in 2020, 3,028 ha in 2021, 12,539 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 26,731 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 49% of the area of London (779 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. Paletwa where it started
    70,508 ha reached on 29 Mar
    8.7 %
  2. Kyauktaw
    7,667 ha reached on 29 Mar
    4.5 %

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 area0.22 ha
Residents≈ 750

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.22 hectares of built-up land and about 750 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)
29 Mar 34.1 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Mar 35.6 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
31 Mar 35.9 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.9 mm High 31
1 Apr 29.7 °C 56 % 39 km/h 6.2 mm Very low 3
2 Apr 28.3 °C 53 % 20 km/h 1.0 mm Very low 5
3 Apr 30.9 °C 45 % 23 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 12
4 Apr 34.5 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
5 Apr 34.9 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
6 Apr 36.6 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
7 Apr 38.1 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Apr 39.0 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Apr 39.4 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Apr 39.9 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
11 Apr 39.8 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
12 Apr 39.6 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Apr 39.0 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Apr 40.7 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
15 Apr 40.7 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Apr 40.0 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Apr 39.7 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm High 37
18 Apr 40.3 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
19 Apr 38.9 °C 34 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Apr 39.5 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.9 mm High 26
21 Apr 36.7 °C 42 % 30 km/h 2.7 mm Moderate 14
22 Apr 36.3 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.6 mm High 25
23 Apr 38.3 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
24 Apr 36.1 °C 37 % 25 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 21
25 Apr 37.8 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
26 Apr 39.2 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Apr 39.8 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Apr after 39.6 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 38
29 Apr after 39.9 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 40
30 Apr after 40.5 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 May after 39.0 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 May after 36.0 °C 29 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 May after 35.8 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 May after 34.6 °C 35 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
5 May after 37.8 °C 38 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
6 May after 37.5 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 May after 39.7 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Mar 2023
After · 4 May 2023

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 16 April 2023 the air beside the fire reached 397 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 222: 15 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak397 µg/m³
Days over the guideline19 days
PM10566 µg/m³
Optical depth5.11
34567891011121314151617181920212223
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 · 4,192Every 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 Paletwa fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 March 2023 to 27 April 2023 (30 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 April 2023 to 20 April 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 77,924 hectares (779.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Paletwa (70,508 ha, 8.7 %); Kyauktaw (7,667 ha, 4.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.7 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 40 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 (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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 20 April 2023 → 27 April 2023.
  2. Start date: 5 April 2023 → 29 March 2023.

RSS Changes to this page

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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 5 April 2023 to 20 April 2023. 4,192 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.