Ban Mo fire, April 2026 Ban Mo, Don Phut, Tha Ruea
The fire started on 6 April 2026 in Ban Mo, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,567 hectares from heat detections, spread across 5 municipalities.
Number 514 in Thailand in 2026, of 880.
The power measured by the satellite is low (17.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 1,567ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 9days
- 6 Apr 2026 – 14 Apr 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 5
- districts
- Started on
- 6 Apr
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 23
- in a single hotspot: 18 MW
- Danger at start
- 34
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 198MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 18 Apr.
This area had burned before
36% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 436 ha in 2019, 327 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 565 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
Ban Mo where it started758 ha reached on 6 Apr4.9 %
-
438 ha reached on 10 Apr7.6 %
-
196 ha reached on 11 Apr1.8 %
-
160 ha reached on 9 Apr1.1 %
-
24 ha0.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 Apr | 39.1 °C | 35 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 7 Apr | 39.2 °C | 38 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 8 Apr | 39.4 °C | 34 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 9 Apr | 39.3 °C | 34 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 10 Apr | 39.1 °C | 36 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 11 Apr | 39.6 °C | 28 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 12 Apr | 39.3 °C | 32 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 13 Apr | 39.5 °C | 28 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 14 Apr | 40.2 °C | 28 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 15 Apr after | 39.6 °C | 35 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 16 Apr after | 39.6 °C | 37 % | 28 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 38 |
| 17 Apr after | 39.2 °C | 40 % | 31 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 36 |
| 18 Apr after | 39.7 °C | 38 % | 29 km/h | 1.4 mm | High 28 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 16 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 66 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 40: 2.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 23Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ban Mo fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 April 2026 and 14 April 2026: 9 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 1,567 hectares (15.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 5 municipalities: Ban Mo (758 ha, 4.9 %); Don Phut (438 ha, 7.6 %); Tha Ruea (196 ha, 1.8 %); Nakhon Luang (160 ha, 1.1 %); Bang Pahan (24 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 40.2 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, class Very high.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Thailand (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.
Emergency number: 199 · 191
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.
Report an error
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 ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). 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.