Saw fire, March 2024 Kanpetlet, Saw, Mindat
The fire started on 25 March 2024 in Saw, Myanmar, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,511 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 44th largest in Magway since 2016 (of 190 with a page). Number 49 in Myanmar in 2024, of 174.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Saw · 2019Saw · 2016Saw · 2021Saw · 2024
- Burnt area
- 4,511ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 15days
- 25 Mar 2024 – 8 Apr 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 25 Mar
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 295
- in a single hotspot: 70 MW
- Danger at start
- 21
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 128MW
- detected power per day, on average
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.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,679 ha in 2016, 1,089 ha in 2017, 49 ha in 2018, 3,096 ha in 2019, 2,401 ha in 2021, 124 ha in 2022, 937 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,687 ha that had burned before.
- 1,751 ha Saw fire, March 2019 5,884 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 742 ha Saw fire, April 2016 2,105 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 25 ha Saw fire, February 2021 2,449 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
1,975 ha reached on 1 Apr0.8 %
-
Saw where it started1,702 ha reached on 25 Mar1.0 %
-
861 ha reached on 26 Mar0.3 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Apr | 33.4 °C | 33 % | 56 km/h | 1.0 mm | High 21 |
| 2 Apr | 35.0 °C | 34 % | 50 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 26 |
| 3 Apr | 37.3 °C | 28 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 4 Apr | 38.3 °C | 24 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 5 Apr | 36.9 °C | 30 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 6 Apr | 39.1 °C | 27 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 7 Apr | 37.1 °C | 29 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 8 Apr | 37.5 °C | 27 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 9 Apr after | 38.1 °C | 23 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 10 Apr after | 37.7 °C | 25 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 11 Apr after | 36.8 °C | 24 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 12 Apr after | 35.2 °C | 31 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 13 Apr after | 35.8 °C | 30 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 14 Apr after | 36.6 °C | 29 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 15 Apr after | 36.1 °C | 35 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 16 Apr after | 37.2 °C | 30 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 17 Apr after | 35.1 °C | 39 % | 34 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 30 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 7 April 2024 the air beside the fire reached 124 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 72: 4.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 295Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 6,541 haSaw3 April 2024 · 17 days · 29 km away
- 17,092 haSaw21 February 2021 · 32 days · 30 km away
- 7,905 haMindat4 April 2023 · 18 days · 30 km away
- 16,167 haSidoktaya24 March 2017 · 22 days · 38 km away
- 7,201 haKanpetlet6 April 2016 · 15 days · 38 km away
- 5,940 haPauk19 February 2026 · 29 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Saw fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 25 March 2024 to 8 April 2024 (15 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 April 2024 to 7 April 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,511 hectares (45.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Kanpetlet (1,975 ha, 0.8 %); Saw (1,702 ha, 1.0 %); Mindat (861 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.1 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 1 April 2024 to 7 April 2024. 295 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.
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.