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Taungoo fire, 14 March 2026 Taungoo

Out · last detection 13 Apr 2026, 06:50 UTC

The fire started on 14 March 2026 in Taungoo, Myanmar, and satellites saw it burning for 31 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,056 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2th largest in Bago since 2016 (of 81 with a page). Number 35 in Myanmar in 2026, of 480.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Taungoo · 2020Yedashe · 2017Taungoo · 2024Yedashe · 2016

Burnt area
12,056ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
31days
14 Mar 2026 – 13 Apr 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
14 Mar
2026
Heat detections
386
in a single hotspot: 240 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Average daily power
414MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Mar13 Apr
13 Apr 2026

How it evolved, day by day

15 Mar 2026 · 22 MW · 1 17 Mar 2026 · 460 MW · 11 20 Mar 2026 · 177 MW · 10 21 Mar 2026 · 2,493 MW · 80 22 Mar 2026 · 315 MW · 10 23 Mar 2026 · 292 MW · 10 24 Mar 2026 · 580 MW · 16 25 Mar 2026 · 256 MW · 11 26 Mar 2026 · 1,517 MW · 28 27 Mar 2026 · 220 MW · 5 28 Mar 2026 · 2,605 MW · 69 29 Mar 2026 · 45 MW · 3 30 Mar 2026 · 74 MW · 5 31 Mar 2026 · 510 MW · 30 1 Apr 2026 · 333 MW · 14 2 Apr 2026 · 272 MW · 24 3 Apr 2026 · 33 MW · 3 4 Apr 2026 · 304 MW · 10 5 Apr 2026 · 16 MW · 2 6 Apr 2026 · 474 MW · 13 7 Apr 2026 · 47 MW · 8 8 Apr 2026 · 42 MW · 6 9 Apr 2026 · 23 MW · 3 10 Apr 2026 · 17 MW · 4 11 Apr 2026 · 48 MW · 6 12 Apr 2026 · 6 MW · 2 13 Apr 2026 · 7 MW · 2
15 Mar 22 Mar 26 Mar 28 Mar 30 Mar 3 Apr 7 Apr 11 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
34km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.6 mm on 23 Apr.

This area had burned before

76% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,328 ha in 2016, 1,061 ha in 2017, 640 ha in 2018, 2,819 ha in 2019, 5,442 ha in 2020, 2,527 ha in 2021, 887 ha in 2022, 2,205 ha in 2023, 4,496 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,121 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 7.6% of the area of London (121 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. Taungoo where it started
    12,123 ha reached on 15 Mar
    7.0 %

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 2025
Built-up area0.26 ha
Residents≈ 50

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.26 hectares of built-up land and about 50 residents (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)
14 Mar 35.4 °C 41 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm High 23
15 Mar 36.8 °C 39 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
16 Mar 37.4 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
17 Mar 37.5 °C 30 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
18 Mar 38.9 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
19 Mar 39.3 °C 30 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Mar 37.4 °C 34 % 26 km/h 1.0 mm High 24
21 Mar 38.3 °C 38 % 28 km/h 1.0 mm High 24
22 Mar 37.5 °C 34 % 24 km/h 0.4 mm High 26
23 Mar 38.3 °C 25 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Mar 38.7 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Mar 39.0 °C 29 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Mar 40.1 °C 29 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Mar 40.3 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Mar 40.8 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Mar 40.9 °C 25 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
30 Mar 41.0 °C 26 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
31 Mar 41.9 °C 30 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
1 Apr 42.3 °C 26 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Apr 42.0 °C 27 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Apr 41.7 °C 29 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Apr 41.0 °C 32 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Apr 40.6 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 Apr 39.7 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
7 Apr 38.7 °C 34 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
8 Apr 39.1 °C 34 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
9 Apr 38.8 °C 35 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Apr 38.5 °C 34 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Apr 39.8 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Apr 40.3 °C 29 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
13 Apr 41.1 °C 32 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Apr after 40.7 °C 34 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 Apr after 40.8 °C 36 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
16 Apr after 39.6 °C 38 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Apr after 41.4 °C 32 % 25 km/h 0.7 mm High 34
18 Apr after 40.6 °C 40 % 28 km/h 0.5 mm High 34
19 Apr after 40.8 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Apr after 40.2 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Apr after 41.4 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
22 Apr after 41.3 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
23 Apr after 41.0 °C 36 % 31 km/h 2.6 mm High 22

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Mar 2026
After · 20 Apr 2026

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 29 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 159 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 82: 5.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak159 µg/m³
Days over the guideline30 days
PM10166 µg/m³
Optical depth1.39
121314151617181920212223242526272829303112345678910
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 · 386Every 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 Taungoo fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 March 2026 to 13 April 2026 (31 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 March 2026 to 7 April 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 12,056 hectares (120.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Taungoo (12,123 ha, 7.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 42.3 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.
  1. Last day with fire: 7 April 2026 → 13 April 2026.

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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 14 March 2026 to 7 April 2026. 386 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.

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.