A preliminary assessment of the distribution of vegetation fires in Myanmar and key drivers

Haze pollution from vegetation fires in the ASEAN region is a recurrent issue. Due to this problem, in 2002, ASEAN countries gathered efforts to tackle vegetation fires and reduce haze pollution in the region. In the case of Myanmar, vegetation fires remain to be assessed. This study aimed at investigating the spatio-temporal distribution of vegetation fires in Myanmar based on active fire data from MODIS. The results showed that 811,143 fire hotspots (FHS) were detected by MODIS over the period 2006-2017 with on average 68,000 FHS each year. Most of the FHS were found to occur on forest land, followed by other wooded land and crop land. Based on the distribution of FHS in Myanmar, a number of States and Regions were selected as priority areas for vegetation fires control to identify the main drivers. Through expert judgement by representatives from government organisations, it was found that the main drivers of vegetation fires in Myanmar include, in decreasing order of importance, burning for land clearance; burning for collection of wood and non-wood forest products; careless and accidental fires; burning for hunting; and burning for the removal of agricultural residues.