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Shadaw fire, 27 January 2020 Bawlake, Shadaw, Loikaw

Out · last detection 18 Mar 2020, 18:41 UTC

The fire started on 27 January 2020 in Shadaw, Myanmar, and satellites saw it burning for 52 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 51,616 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:

It is the 3th largest in Kayah since 2016 (of 209 with a page). Number 2 in Myanmar in 2020, of 232.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Loikaw · 2017Shadaw · 2026Shadaw · 2023Bawlake · 2021

Burnt area
51,616ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
52days
27 Jan 2020 – 18 Mar 2020
Municipalities hit
4
municipalities
Started on
27 Jan
2020
Heat detections
2,873
in a single hotspot: 51 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Average daily power
183MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Jan18 Mar
18 Mar 2020

How it evolved, day by day

27 Jan 2020 · 39 MW · 10 28 Jan 2020 · 32 MW · 19 29 Jan 2020 · 53 MW · 35 30 Jan 2020 · 47 MW · 9 31 Jan 2020 · 12 MW · 8 1 Feb 2020 · 17 MW · 16 2 Feb 2020 · 174 MW · 54 3 Feb 2020 · 109 MW · 59 4 Feb 2020 · 50 MW · 19 5 Feb 2020 · 113 MW · 36 6 Feb 2020 · 154 MW · 40 7 Feb 2020 · 207 MW · 42 8 Feb 2020 · 96 MW · 40 9 Feb 2020 · 87 MW · 20 10 Feb 2020 · 22 MW · 11 11 Feb 2020 · 108 MW · 34 12 Feb 2020 · 316 MW · 80 13 Feb 2020 · 623 MW · 194 14 Feb 2020 · 531 MW · 165 15 Feb 2020 · 149 MW · 64 16 Feb 2020 · 291 MW · 51 17 Feb 2020 · 317 MW · 86 18 Feb 2020 · 820 MW · 178 19 Feb 2020 · 668 MW · 204 20 Feb 2020 · 506 MW · 141 21 Feb 2020 · 392 MW · 84 22 Feb 2020 · 220 MW · 84 23 Feb 2020 · 233 MW · 40 24 Feb 2020 · 360 MW · 123 25 Feb 2020 · 322 MW · 92 26 Feb 2020 · 13 MW · 7 27 Feb 2020 · 165 MW · 51 28 Feb 2020 · 303 MW · 87 29 Feb 2020 · 367 MW · 133 1 Mar 2020 · 218 MW · 97 2 Mar 2020 · 193 MW · 61 3 Mar 2020 · 152 MW · 53 4 Mar 2020 · 133 MW · 33 5 Mar 2020 · 162 MW · 43 6 Mar 2020 · 103 MW · 56 7 Mar 2020 · 120 MW · 55 8 Mar 2020 · 190 MW · 56 9 Mar 2020 · 27 MW · 6 10 Mar 2020 · 29 MW · 7 11 Mar 2020 · 70 MW · 19 12 Mar 2020 · 28 MW · 12 13 Mar 2020 · 17 MW · 6 14 Mar 2020 · 3 MW · 2 15 Mar 2020 · 13 MW · 5 16 Mar 2020 · 49 MW · 17 17 Mar 2020 · 39 MW · 22 18 Mar 2020 · 63 MW · 7
27 Jan 4 Feb 12 Feb 18 Feb 20 Feb 28 Feb 7 Mar 15 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

37°high
40km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 28 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

5% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 61 ha in 2016, 1,153 ha in 2017, 849 ha in 2018, 1,144 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,584 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 33% of the area of London (516 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. Bawlake
    33,048 ha reached on 27 Jan
    17 %
  2. Shadaw where it started
    12,083 ha reached on 27 Jan
    5.5 %
  3. Loikaw
    4,540 ha reached on 4 Feb
    2.9 %
  4. Mese
    2,212 ha reached on 29 Jan
    1.2 %

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 2020
Built-up area0.20 ha
Residents≈ 40

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.20 hectares of built-up land and about 40 residents (GHSL 2020, 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.

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)
27 Jan 27.2 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
28 Jan 28.3 °C 27 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
29 Jan 29.0 °C 29 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
30 Jan 29.2 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
31 Jan 29.6 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
1 Feb 30.1 °C 36 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
2 Feb 31.0 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
3 Feb 30.6 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
4 Feb 29.9 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
5 Feb 30.4 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Feb 30.9 °C 26 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
7 Feb 31.9 °C 31 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
8 Feb 32.3 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
9 Feb 31.2 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
10 Feb 30.8 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
11 Feb 32.2 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Feb 32.1 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Feb 31.9 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Feb 30.9 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 Feb 30.9 °C 31 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Feb 31.3 °C 26 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
17 Feb 32.4 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Feb 31.9 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Feb 32.2 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Feb 32.3 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
21 Feb 31.8 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Feb 32.2 °C 33 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
23 Feb 30.3 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
24 Feb 31.2 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 Feb 32.4 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
26 Feb 31.8 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Feb 30.8 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Feb 31.6 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
29 Feb 33.1 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
1 Mar 33.8 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Mar 34.0 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Mar 32.8 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
4 Mar 33.2 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
5 Mar 33.2 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Mar 34.1 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Mar 34.7 °C 25 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Mar 34.3 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
9 Mar 34.8 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Mar 34.6 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Mar 35.6 °C 23 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
12 Mar 36.3 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
13 Mar 36.8 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
14 Mar 36.5 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
15 Mar 36.7 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Mar 37.2 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
17 Mar 36.7 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Mar 36.5 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Mar after 35.8 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
20 Mar after 35.3 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 39
21 Mar after 34.2 °C 30 % 49 km/h 0.7 mm High 33
22 Mar after 34.5 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 38
23 Mar after 34.3 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Mar after 34.9 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Mar after 35.1 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
26 Mar after 35.2 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
27 Mar after 35.9 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Mar after 36.7 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Jan 2020
After · 25 Mar 2020

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 · 2,873Every 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 Shadaw fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 January 2020 to 18 March 2020 (52 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 February 2020 to 13 March 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 51,616 hectares (516.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Bawlake (33,048 ha, 17 %); Shadaw (12,083 ha, 5.5 %); Loikaw (4,540 ha, 2.9 %); Mese (2,212 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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: 13 March 2020 → 18 March 2020.
  2. Start date: 1 February 2020 → 27 January 2020.

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; 9 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 1 February 2020 to 13 March 2020. 2,873 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 2020, 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.