Saw fire, February 2023 Saw, Kanpetlet
The fire started on 28 February 2023 in Saw, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,594 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 120th largest in Magway since 2016 (of 189 with a page). Number 132 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2023, of 212.
The power measured by the satellite is low (16.9 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
- 2,594ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 6days
- 28 Feb 2023 – 5 Mar 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 28 Feb
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 102
- in a single hotspot: 17 MW
- Energy released
- 244MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
This area had burned before
80% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 783 ha in 2017, 455 ha in 2018, 60 ha in 2019, 1,522 ha in 2020, 1,337 ha in 2021, 1,497 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,074 ha that had burned before.
- 1,522 ha Saw fire, March 2020 3,662 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,497 ha Saw fire, March 2022 2,196 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,337 ha Saw fire, February 2021 17,092 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Saw where it started2,172 ha reached on 23 Feb1.2 %
-
433 ha reached on 23 Feb0.2 %
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.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 102Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 17,092 haSaw23 February 2021 · 25 days · 2 km away
- 24,764 haKanpetlet27 March 2020 · 23 days · 18 km away
- 19,378 haKanpetlet4 March 2021 · 24 days · 25 km away
- 29,536 haKanpetletMarch 2019 · 33 days · 27 km away
- 19,991 haKanpetletMarch 2025 · 16 days · 27 km away
- 54,708 haSidoktaya1 April 2023 · 29 days · 28 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Saw fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 February 2023 and 5 March 2023: 6 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 2,594 hectares (25.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Saw (2,172 ha, 1.2 %); Kanpetlet (433 ha, 0.2 %).
- 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.
Report an error
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.