How long did the Taunggyi fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 10 January 2021 to 4 February 2021 (26 days). The perimeter dates it from 17 January 2021 to 28 January 2021.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,126 hectares (71.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Taunggyi (7,166 ha, 3.6 %); Lawksawk (12 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 29.4 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, 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.

MM · Myanmar · 2021-01-10 → 2021-02-04

Taunggyi fire, 10 January 2021 Taunggyi, Lawksawk

Out · last detection 4 Feb 2021, 06:55 UTC

The fire started on 10 January 2021 in Taunggyi, Myanmar, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,126 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 77th largest in Shan since 2016 (of 806 with a page). Number 16 in Myanmar in 2021, of 190.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Taunggyi · 2020 Taunggyi · 2017 Taunggyi · 2016 Taunggyi · 2023

Burnt area: 7,126ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 26days; 10 Jan 2021 – 4 Feb 2021
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 10 Jan; 2021
Heat detections: 341; in a single hotspot: 42 MW
Danger at start: 21; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 103MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Jan4 Feb

Play back 4 Feb 2021

How it evolved, day by day

12 Jan 16 Jan 20 Jan 24 Jan 28 Jan 1 Feb

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

29°high

42km/h · peak gust

25%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.0 mm on 7 Feb.

This area had burned before

76% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,788 ha in 2016, 3,677 ha in 2017, 1,855 ha in 2019, 4,390 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,424 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 4.5% of the area of London (71 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

Taunggyi where it started

7,166 ha reached on 12 Jan

3.6 %
Lawksawk

12 ha reached on 19 Jan

0.0 %

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 area0.48 ha

Residents≈ 70

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.48 hectares of built-up land and about 70 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)
10 Jan	29.4 °C	40 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
11 Jan	28.2 °C	49 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
12 Jan	20.2 °C	77 %	33 km/h	3.4 mm	Very low 1
13 Jan	24.9 °C	45 %	35 km/h	0.2 mm	Low 6
14 Jan	23.9 °C	50 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
15 Jan	25.0 °C	45 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
16 Jan	26.4 °C	42 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
17 Jan	26.7 °C	35 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
18 Jan	25.9 °C	45 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 21
19 Jan	24.9 °C	48 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
20 Jan	25.8 °C	38 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
21 Jan	25.2 °C	43 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
22 Jan	25.8 °C	38 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
23 Jan	25.6 °C	37 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
24 Jan	27.3 °C	39 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
25 Jan	28.1 °C	37 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
26 Jan	28.9 °C	34 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
27 Jan	28.4 °C	36 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
28 Jan	29.1 °C	32 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
29 Jan	28.9 °C	31 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
30 Jan	27.9 °C	35 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
31 Jan	27.1 °C	28 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
1 Feb	27.9 °C	25 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
2 Feb	27.5 °C	32 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
3 Feb	28.4 °C	30 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
4 Feb	28.4 °C	29 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
5 Feb after	28.1 °C	35 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
6 Feb after	27.2 °C	33 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
7 Feb after	23.8 °C	63 %	38 km/h	11.0 mm	Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 3 Jan 2021

After · 11 Feb 2021

Before After

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 · 341Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Myanmar ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Taunggyi fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 10 January 2021 to 4 February 2021 (26 days). The perimeter dates it from 17 January 2021 to 28 January 2021.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,126 hectares (71.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Taunggyi (7,166 ha, 3.6 %); Lawksawk (12 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 29.4 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

26 October 2026 Last day with fire: 28 January 2021 → 4 February 2021.
26 October 2026 Start date: 17 January 2021 → 10 January 2021.

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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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 17 January 2021 to 28 January 2021. 341 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.

Where it burned