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MM · Myanmar · –

Tachileik fire, 23 March 2023 Tachileik

Out · last detection 25 Mar 2023, 06:51 UTC

The fire started on 23 March 2023 in Tachileik, Myanmar, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,194 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 518th largest in Shan since 2016 (of 625 with a page). Number 198 in Myanmar in 2023, of 240.

The power measured by the satellite is low (7.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Mongton · 2025Mongping · 2021Tachileik · 2026Tachileik · 2023

Burnt area
2,194ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
23 Mar 2023 – 31 Mar 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
23 Mar
2023
Heat detections
1
in a single hotspot: 8 MW
Danger at start
19
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
8MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Mar31 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

25 Mar 2023 · 8 MW · 1

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
35km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,005 ha in 2016, 610 ha in 2017, 229 ha in 2018, 1,327 ha in 2019, 1,146 ha in 2020, 1,405 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,008 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.4% of the area of London (22 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. Tachileik where it started
    2,201 ha reached on 25 Mar
    0.6 %

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 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside 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)
23 Mar 35.3 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 19
24 Mar 34.9 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
25 Mar 34.9 °C 30 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
26 Mar 36.0 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
27 Mar 35.2 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
28 Mar 36.0 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
29 Mar 34.3 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
30 Mar 35.2 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
31 Mar 36.7 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
1 Apr after 36.8 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
2 Apr after 35.6 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
3 Apr after 35.3 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
4 Apr after 35.8 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
5 Apr after 37.0 °C 22 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Apr after 36.5 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
7 Apr after 37.2 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 Apr after 37.3 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Apr after 38.3 °C 29 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
10 Apr after 39.4 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 19.4, a minimum humidity of 29% and 5 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 40.

FWI at the start 19.4
Minimum humidity 29 %
Days without rain 5
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Mongton fire, March 2025
2,591 ha 16 days FWI 19.9 Min. humidity 30 % 145 km away, in 2025

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.6 mm on 19 Mar.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

8 days
median duration
2,344 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.7 mm
rain at the end (median; 22 of 40 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (2,194 ha against a median of 2,344 ha) and lasted 9 days, against 8 days.

In 18 of 40, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.7 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
35km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 31 Mar, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 22 of 40, with a median of 2.7 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Mar 2023
After · 7 Apr 2023

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 25 March 2023 the air beside the fire reached 233 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 123: 8.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak233 µg/m³
Days over the guideline14 days
PM10333 µg/m³
Optical depth1.50
21 Mar24 Mar27 Mar30 Mar2 Apr
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 · 1Every 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 Tachileik fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 March 2023 and 31 March 2023: 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 2,194 hectares (21.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Tachileik (2,201 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 40. Their median duration was 8 days and their median area 2,344 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In 18 of 40, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.7 mm.

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.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. One Suomi-NPP VIIRS detection 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.

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.