Shadaw fire, February 2024 Shadaw
The fire started on 26 February 2024 in Shadaw, Myanmar, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,840 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 14th largest in Kayah since 2016 (of 209 with a page). Number 8 in Myanmar in 2024, of 174.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 16,840ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 24days
- 26 Feb 2024 – 20 Mar 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 26 Feb
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 603
- in a single hotspot: 119 MW
- Danger at start
- 36
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 95MW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.8 mm on 21 Mar.
This area had burned before
93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,920 ha in 2016, 7,158 ha in 2017, 1,446 ha in 2018, 6,726 ha in 2019, 10,163 ha in 2020, 8,392 ha in 2021, 5,748 ha in 2022, 6,735 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 15,695 ha that had burned before.
- 4,787 ha Shadaw fire, March 2022 18,436 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,233 ha Bawlake fire, February 2021 25,277 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,275 ha Shadaw fire, March 2023 18,554 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,621 ha Shadaw fire, February 2020 6,061 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,035 ha Shadaw fire, January 2020 3,133 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,932 ha Shadaw fire, March 2019 17,460 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,708 ha Shadaw fire, February 2017 2,626 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,437 ha Shadaw fire, February 2017 2,051 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
-
Shadaw where it started16,923 ha reached on 29 Feb7.7 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 Feb | 38.3 °C | 22 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 27 Feb | 38.9 °C | 23 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 28 Feb | 38.3 °C | 23 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 29 Feb | 38.0 °C | 26 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 1 Mar | 37.7 °C | 25 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 2 Mar | 38.1 °C | 24 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 3 Mar | 37.1 °C | 33 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 4 Mar | 38.3 °C | 24 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 5 Mar | 38.9 °C | 26 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 6 Mar | 38.9 °C | 25 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 7 Mar | 38.1 °C | 26 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 8 Mar | 38.4 °C | 27 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 9 Mar | 38.5 °C | 27 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 10 Mar | 38.3 °C | 31 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 11 Mar | 38.7 °C | 24 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 12 Mar | 37.6 °C | 31 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 13 Mar | 37.9 °C | 26 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 14 Mar | 37.8 °C | 25 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 15 Mar | 38.1 °C | 25 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 16 Mar | 38.7 °C | 28 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 17 Mar | 38.9 °C | 29 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 18 Mar | 40.1 °C | 25 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 19 Mar | 39.9 °C | 24 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 20 Mar | 38.1 °C | 30 % | 30 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 38 |
| 21 Mar after | 36.4 °C | 34 % | 31 km/h | 2.8 mm | Moderate 18 |
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 17 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 63 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 41: 2.8 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 · 603Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 18,436 haShadaw10 March 2022 · 11 days · 6 km away
- 65,971 haShadaw13 March 2026 · 44 days · 12 km away
- 51,616 haShadaw1 February 2020 · 42 days · 17 km away
- 18,554 haShadaw15 March 2023 · 30 days · 17 km away
- 21,278 haMawkmai18 February 2024 · 31 days · 25 km away
- 25,277 haBawlake25 February 2021 · 26 days · 30 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Shadaw fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 February 2024 to 20 March 2024 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 26 February 2024 to 17 March 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 16,840 hectares (168.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Shadaw (16,923 ha, 7.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 40.1 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 17 March 2024 → 20 March 2024.
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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 26 February 2024 to 17 March 2024. 603 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.
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.