How long did the Pyay fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 March 2026 and 2 April 2026: 9 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 2,857 hectares (28.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Paukkhaung (2,630 ha, 1.4 %); Pyay (243 ha, 0.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 40.9 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.

MM · Myanmar (Burma) · 2026-03-25 → 2026-04-02

Pyay fire, March 2026 Paukkhaung, Pyay

Out · last detection 2 Apr 2026, 19:26 UTC

The fire started on 25 March 2026 in Pyay, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,857 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 34th largest in Bago since 2016 (of 81 with a page). Number 227 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2026, of 418.

Burnt area: 2,857ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 9days; 25 Mar 2026 – 2 Apr 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 25 Mar; 2026
Heat detections: 74; in a single hotspot: 67 MW
Danger at start: 35; High · FWI index
Energy released: 560MW; sum of detected power

Play back 2 Apr 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Mar2 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

252627282930312

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

32km/h · peak gust

25%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

41% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 980 ha in 2020, 640 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,175 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Paukkhaung

2,630 ha reached on 20 Mar

1.4 %
Pyay where it started

243 ha reached on 18 Mar

0.3 %

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)
25 Mar	39.1 °C	25 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
26 Mar	39.9 °C	29 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
27 Mar	39.5 °C	29 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
28 Mar	39.5 °C	29 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
29 Mar	39.5 °C	30 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
30 Mar	40.2 °C	27 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
31 Mar	40.4 °C	33 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
1 Apr	40.9 °C	29 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
2 Apr	40.8 °C	30 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
3 Apr after	40.8 °C	31 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
4 Apr after	39.7 °C	35 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
5 Apr after	39.5 °C	41 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
6 Apr after	38.9 °C	42 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
7 Apr after	37.1 °C	42 %	31 km/h	0.1 mm	High 35
8 Apr after	37.5 °C	37 %	31 km/h	0.2 mm	High 35
9 Apr after	37.3 °C	35 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
10 Apr after	38.0 °C	43 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
11 Apr after	39.4 °C	27 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
12 Apr after	39.2 °C	31 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 18 Mar 2026

After · 9 Apr 2026

Before After

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 26 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 103 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 61: 4.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak103 µg/m³

Days over the guideline14 days

PM10117 µg/m³

Optical depth1.17

WHO 15

23242526272829303112345

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 · 74Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Myanmar (Burma) ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Pyay fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 March 2026 and 2 April 2026: 9 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 2,857 hectares (28.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Paukkhaung (2,630 ha, 1.4 %); Pyay (243 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 40.9 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned