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Thayet fire, April 2019 Thayet, Mindon

Out · last detection 4 Apr 2019, 06:55 UTC

The fire started on 1 April 2019 in Thayet, Myanmar (Burma), and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,040 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 93th largest in Magway since 2016 (of 189 with a page). Number 56 in Myanmar (Burma) in 2019, of 141.

Burnt area
3,040ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
1 Apr 2019 – 4 Apr 2019
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
1 Apr
2019
Heat detections
104
in a single hotspot: 67 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Apr 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Apr4 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

1234

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
27km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

28% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 378 ha in 2016, 826 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 844 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Thayet where it started
    1,956 ha reached on 27 Mar
    1.6 %
  2. Mindon
    1,103 ha reached on 30 Mar
    0.4 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

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)
1 Apr 37.9 °C 33 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Apr 39.4 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Apr 38.5 °C 25 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Apr 39.5 °C 24 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
5 Apr after 40.7 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Apr after 39.2 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Apr after 39.7 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Apr after 39.9 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Apr after 39.5 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
10 Apr after 38.9 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
11 Apr after 40.7 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
12 Apr after 40.3 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
13 Apr after 40.9 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Apr after 40.8 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Mar 2019
After · 11 Apr 2019

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 · 104Every 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 (Burma) ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Thayet fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 April 2019 and 4 April 2019: 4 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 3,040 hectares (30.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Thayet (1,956 ha, 1.6 %); Mindon (1,103 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.5 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 27 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 (Burma) (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

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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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.