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MM · Myanmar · –

Ywangan fire, 6 March 2021 Ywangan, Kyaukse

Out · last detection 11 Mar 2021, 18:28 UTC

The fire started on 6 March 2021 in Ywangan, Myanmar, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,375 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 223th largest in Shan since 2016 (of 625 with a page). Number 70 in Myanmar in 2021, of 190.

Burnt area
3,375ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
6 Mar 2021 – 10 Mar 2021
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
6 Mar
2021
Heat detections
118
in a single hotspot: 0 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
48MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Mar10 Mar
11 Mar 2021

How it evolved, day by day

6 Mar 2021 · 6 MW · 7 7 Mar 2021 · 26 MW · 17 8 Mar 2021 · 175 MW · 48 9 Mar 2021 · 66 MW · 39 10 Mar 2021 · 15 MW · 6 11 Mar 2021 · 1 MW · 1
6 Mar 8 Mar 10 Mar

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
42km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.1% of the area of London (34 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. Ywangan where it started
    3,193 ha
    1.1 %
  2. 205 ha
    0.1 %

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 area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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)
6 Mar 32.6 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Mar 31.9 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Mar 32.1 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
9 Mar 33.7 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
10 Mar 33.4 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 Mar after 32.7 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Mar after 33.7 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
13 Mar after 34.4 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Mar after 34.8 °C 27 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Mar after 34.0 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
16 Mar after 34.9 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
17 Mar after 35.3 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Mar after 35.4 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
19 Mar after 36.1 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Mar after 36.4 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 39.7, a minimum humidity of 22% and 13 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 31.

FWI at the start 39.7
Minimum humidity 22 %
Days without rain 13
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Mongyai fire, March 2025
2,640 ha 13 days FWI 43.9 Min. humidity 22 % 181 km away, in 2025

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

12 days
median duration
3,262 ha
median area
0 %
went past 10,000 ha
2.1 mm
rain at the end (median; 16 of 31 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (3,375 ha against a median of 3,262 ha) and lasted 5 days, against 12 days.

In 15 of 31, 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 2.1 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
42km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 10 Mar, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 16 of 31, with a median of 2.1 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 · 27 Feb 2021
After · 17 Mar 2021

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 · 0Every 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 Ywangan fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 March 2021 and 10 March 2021: 5 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 3,375 hectares (33.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ywangan (3,193 ha, 1.1 %); Kyaukse (205 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.
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: 31. Their median duration was 12 days and their median area 3,262 ha; 0 % went past 10,000 ha. In 15 of 31, 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 2.1 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 · 4 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 17 March 2021 → 10 March 2021.
  2. Start date: 27 February 2021 → 6 March 2021.
  3. Last day with fire: 10 March 2021 → 17 March 2021.
  4. Start date: 6 March 2021 → 27 February 2021.

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. No 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.