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TH · 2020 yearbook

Wildfires in Thailand in 2020

457 fires larger than 1,000 hectares in Thailand in 2020, with 1,120,741 hectares burned according to their perimeters. Here is the whole year: what the official record says, when and where it burned and what the weather was like.

Only fires of 1,000 ha or more get an entry: smaller ones are not in the lists or the entry totals, but they are in the GWIS yearly series.

These figures leave out one page with faulty data, under review. They appear in the lists, marked.

The year in a few sentences

  1. According to Copernicus GWIS, 3,939,322 hectares burned in Thailand in 2020: 1.7 times the average of the other years from 2012 to 2024 (2,328,362 ha). It is the year with the most burned area of the 13 in the record.

    Copernicus GWIS · See the data

  2. The worst week was 18 March to 24 March: 472,746 hectares burned in seven days, 12% of the year according to Copernicus GWIS.

    Copernicus GWIS · See the data

  3. The largest fire was the Ban Rai fire, which started on 4 March 2020 and burned 64,188 hectares: 6% of the area of the year's 457 fires with a page.

    WorldFires · See the data · Open the fire page

Official burned area
3.9 M ha
Copernicus GWIS · ×1.7 the average
Fires with a page
457
1,120,741 ha within their perimeters
Largest fire
64k ha
Ban Rai · 4 Mar
Highest FWI
—
Not yet calculated with the current method

Map of the year

Copernicus GWIS
One circle per fire, sized by its area. Tap one to open its page. Showing the 400 largest of 457.

Month by month

Hectares within the perimeters by the month the fire started. Tap a month to see it on the map.

Week by week, against other years

Copernicus GWIS

Cumulative burned area in 2020 over the lowest and highest of each week in the record since 2012, and its average. The bars below show what burned each week. Tap the chart to see a week. The average and the band are the Copernicus GWIS climatology for 2012–2025, which includes 2020 itself.

0 1.3 M 2.6 M 3.9 M Worst week · 473k ha Jan Mar May Jul Sep Nov
2020 average 2012–2025 lowest and highest Hectares each week

Every year since 2012

Copernicus GWIS

Hectares burned per year in the official record. Tap a year to open its yearbook.

2020: 3,939,322 ha Average of the other years: 2,328,362 ha

Cite this

Markdown version

Copy the sentences with their source and link. WorldFires data are CC BY 4.0: credit WorldFires and the original source.

- According to Copernicus GWIS, 3,939,322 hectares burned in Thailand in 2020: 1.7 times the average of the other years from 2012 to 2024 (2,328,362 ha). It is the year with the most burned area of the 13 in the record.
- The worst week was 18 March to 24 March: 472,746 hectares burned in seven days, 12% of the year according to Copernicus GWIS.
- The largest fire was the Ban Rai fire, which started on 4 March 2020 and burned 64,188 hectares: 6% of the area of the year's 457 fires with a page.

WorldFires, “Wildfires in Thailand in 2020”, https://worldfires.org/en/country/thailand/2020 (accessed 7 November 2026). Sources: Copernicus GWIS, WorldFires.

Fires of 2020, largest first · 458

Burned area in 2020 (Copernicus Land, Sentinel-3)

According to Copernicus Land, 5,112,142 ha burned in 2020: rank 1 of 7 complete years (1 = the most burned). The average of those years is 2,879,182 ha.

The area the Sentinel-3 satellite sees burned each month, separate from the fire pages. It is the same source and the same method every year, so years can be compared with each other. It counts everything that burns, including crop and pasture burning, which is why it does not match the fire pages or the official statistics.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec

Where most burned in 2020

  1. Chiang Mai Province 584,431 ha
  2. Mae Hong Son Province 515,804 ha
  3. Tak Province 373,648 ha
  4. Lampang Province 322,036 ha
  5. Kanchanaburi Province 301,407 ha
  6. Nakhon Sawan Province 176,526 ha
  7. Uttaradit Province 155,004 ha
  8. Phetchabun Province 152,259 ha
  9. Lamphun Province 146,708 ha
  10. Nakhon Ratchasima Province 140,378 ha

The whole series since 2018

Source: Copernicus Land Monitoring Service, “Burnt Area 2018-present (raster 300 m), global, monthly – version 4”, monthly Sentinel-3 product, DOI 10.2909/8fa58061-28ab-49bb-9b77-c26b50733e34. Generated using European Union’s Copernicus Land Monitoring Service information; worldfires.org adds up, by country and region, the true area of the 300 m cells where a burn was detected. Latest month published: May 2026. Product page · Methodology

Sources and limits

Fire-page areas are satellite-measured perimeters and may differ from official statistics. The yearly and weekly record is the Copernicus GWIS estimate. The FWI is our own calculation from ERA5 at each fire's location: it is not an official danger warning.

Perimeters: Copernicus EFFIS and GWIS (and MTBS, NIFC or NBAC in North America). Hotspots: NASA FIRMS (VIIRS). Weather: Copernicus ERA5 via Open-Meteo. How it is calculated