How long did the Taungoo fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 March 2020 to 13 April 2020 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 28 March 2020 to 6 April 2020.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 8,848 hectares (88.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Taungoo (7,095 ha, 4.1 %); Yedashe (1,799 ha, 0.7 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 42.0 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.

MM · Myanmar · 2020-03-23 → 2020-04-13

Taungoo fire, March 2020 Taungoo, Yedashe

Out · last detection 13 Apr 2020, 06:23 UTC

The fire started on 23 March 2020 in Taungoo, Myanmar, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,848 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 4th largest in Bago since 2016 (of 81 with a page). Number 13 in Myanmar in 2020, of 232.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Yedashe · 2017 Yedashe · 2016 Taungoo · 2024 Taungoo · 2026

Burnt area: 8,848ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 22days; 23 Mar 2020 – 13 Apr 2020
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 23 Mar; 2020
Heat detections: 358; in a single hotspot: 308 MW
Danger at start: 40; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 625MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Mar13 Apr

Play back 13 Apr 2020

How it evolved, day by day

23 Mar 26 Mar 30 Mar 31 Mar 2 Apr 5 Apr 9 Apr 13 Apr

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

The weather it burned in

42°high

41km/h · peak gust

19%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

87% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,276 ha in 2016, 3,341 ha in 2017, 1,079 ha in 2018, 3,738 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,721 ha that had burned before.

1,936 ha Yedashe fire, April 2017 3,556 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 5.6% of the area of London (88 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

Taungoo where it started

7,095 ha reached on 23 Mar

4.1 %
Yedashe

1,799 ha reached on 23 Mar

0.7 %

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 2020

Built-up area0.39 ha

Residents≈ 80

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.39 hectares of built-up land and about 80 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)
23 Mar	38.4 °C	25 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
24 Mar	38.4 °C	19 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
25 Mar	39.6 °C	23 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
26 Mar	39.1 °C	21 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
27 Mar	39.9 °C	25 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
28 Mar	40.2 °C	30 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
29 Mar	40.1 °C	33 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
30 Mar	40.7 °C	30 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
31 Mar	40.8 °C	32 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
1 Apr	40.9 °C	27 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
2 Apr	41.0 °C	19 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
3 Apr	41.7 °C	21 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
4 Apr	41.7 °C	26 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
5 Apr	42.0 °C	25 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
6 Apr	40.2 °C	28 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
7 Apr	39.9 °C	22 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
8 Apr	40.4 °C	29 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
9 Apr	39.0 °C	36 %	30 km/h	4.6 mm	Moderate 13
10 Apr	39.8 °C	33 %	27 km/h	0.6 mm	High 27
11 Apr	40.6 °C	29 %	26 km/h	0.7 mm	High 30
12 Apr	40.2 °C	31 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
13 Apr	40.7 °C	23 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
14 Apr after	40.7 °C	29 %	27 km/h	0.3 mm	High 37
15 Apr after	41.3 °C	30 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
16 Apr after	41.3 °C	26 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
17 Apr after	40.7 °C	27 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
18 Apr after	41.3 °C	27 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
19 Apr after	41.7 °C	25 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
20 Apr after	42.2 °C	29 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
21 Apr after	42.3 °C	27 %	40 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 44
22 Apr after	42.1 °C	25 %	44 km/h	0.4 mm	Very high 45
23 Apr after	42.3 °C	25 %	36 km/h	0.4 mm	Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 16 Mar 2020

After · 20 Apr 2020

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 · 358Every 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 Taungoo fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 March 2020 to 13 April 2020 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 28 March 2020 to 6 April 2020.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 8,848 hectares (88.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Taungoo (7,095 ha, 4.1 %); Yedashe (1,799 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 42.0 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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

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: 6 April 2020 → 13 April 2020.
26 October 2026 Start date: 28 March 2020 → 23 March 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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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.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 28 March 2020 to 6 April 2020. 358 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