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Ban Rai fire, 31 January 2016 บ้านไร่ · Ban Rai, Dan Chang

Out · last detection 23 Feb 2016, 19:27 UTC

The fire started on 31 January 2016 in Ban Rai, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,869 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 7th largest in Uthai Thani Province since 2016 (of 73 with a page). Number 9 in Thailand in 2016, of 387.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ban Rai · 2016Ban Rai · 2026Dan Chang · 2026Dan Chang · 2020

Burnt area
8,869ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
24days
31 Jan 2016 – 23 Feb 2016
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
31 Jan
2016
Heat detections
497
in a single hotspot: 52 MW
Danger at start
9
Low · FWI index
Average daily power
87MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Jan23 Feb
23 Feb 2016

How it evolved, day by day

31 Jan 2016 · 6 MW · 4 2 Feb 2016 · 8 MW · 2 3 Feb 2016 · 65 MW · 28 4 Feb 2016 · 11 MW · 5 5 Feb 2016 · 4 MW · 4 6 Feb 2016 · 169 MW · 59 7 Feb 2016 · 133 MW · 32 8 Feb 2016 · 289 MW · 91 9 Feb 2016 · 324 MW · 101 10 Feb 2016 · 283 MW · 33 11 Feb 2016 · 22 MW · 11 12 Feb 2016 · 103 MW · 23 13 Feb 2016 · 211 MW · 47 14 Feb 2016 · 51 MW · 20 15 Feb 2016 · 54 MW · 13 16 Feb 2016 · 15 MW · 2 18 Feb 2016 · 1 MW · 1 19 Feb 2016 · 16 MW · 9 20 Feb 2016 · 32 MW · 6 21 Feb 2016 · 6 MW · 1 23 Feb 2016 · 19 MW · 5
31 Jan 4 Feb 7 Feb 9 Feb 10 Feb 13 Feb 16 Feb 20 Feb

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
49km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 24 Feb.

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 5.6% of the area of London (89 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. Ban Rai บ้านไร่ where it started
    8,263 ha reached on 31 Jan
    2.5 %
  2. Dan Chang ด่านช้าง
    647 ha reached on 3 Feb
    0.5 %

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.

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)
31 Jan 30.6 °C 33 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
1 Feb 28.5 °C 43 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
2 Feb 26.2 °C 60 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
3 Feb 26.5 °C 54 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
4 Feb 27.2 °C 53 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
5 Feb 28.1 °C 48 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
6 Feb 24.1 °C 52 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
7 Feb 20.5 °C 42 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 11
8 Feb 20.6 °C 31 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
9 Feb 23.7 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
10 Feb 26.6 °C 37 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
11 Feb 28.8 °C 36 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
12 Feb 30.7 °C 41 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
13 Feb 31.4 °C 35 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
14 Feb 31.7 °C 30 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
15 Feb 30.8 °C 43 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
16 Feb 30.0 °C 51 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
17 Feb 29.6 °C 53 % 27 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 13
18 Feb 30.1 °C 47 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
19 Feb 31.7 °C 41 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
20 Feb 30.8 °C 39 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
21 Feb 29.2 °C 53 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
22 Feb 30.4 °C 46 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
23 Feb 30.5 °C 46 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
24 Feb after 28.3 °C 62 % 36 km/h 1.0 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Jan 2016
After · 1 Mar 2016

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 · 497Every 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 Thailand ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ban Rai fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 31 January 2016 to 23 February 2016 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 February 2016 to 16 February 2016.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 8,869 hectares (88.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ban Rai (8,263 ha, 2.5 %); Dan Chang (647 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.7 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 16, class Moderate.
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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 16 February 2016 → 23 February 2016.
  2. Start date: 3 February 2016 → 31 January 2016.

RSS Changes to this page

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
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 199 · 191.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 3 February 2016 to 16 February 2016. 497 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.

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 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.