Burned area
satellite only1,703ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 2 Mar 2024 – 13 Mar 2024
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
TH · Thailand · –
Chiang Kham fire, March 2024 เชียงคำ · Pong, Chiang Kham
Out · last detection 13 Mar 2024, 18:42 UTC
The fire started on 2 March 2024 in Chiang Kham, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,703 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 21th largest in Phayao Province since 2016 (of 70 with a page). Number 110 in Thailand in 2024, of 277.
The power measured by the satellite is low (9.8 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only12days
2 Mar 2024 to 13 Mar 2024: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 13 Mar 2024, 18:42 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only2 Mar 2024
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 2 Mar 2024
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only56
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 10 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 2 Mar 2024 – 13 Mar 2024
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only43MW
Total radiative power on 5 March 2024; hotspots that day: 6.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 5 Mar 2024
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model30.1FWI · high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 24.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 2 Mar 2024, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model37.3°C · 31% RH
High of 37.3 °C and minimum humidity of 31% on 8 March 2024; gusts of 37 km/h on 12 March 2024.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 2 Mar 2024 – 13 Mar 2024
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
Living inside
model≈ 50people
Estimated residents inside the perimeter and 1.1 ha of built-up area (100 m grid, epoch 2025).
- Source
- GHSL R2023A · JRC
- Date
- calculated on 24 October 2026
+− cross-check
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.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
What was saved on 24 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 1,703 ha
- Dates
- 2 Mar 2024 – 13 Mar 2024
- Name
- Chiang Kham
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/chiang-kham-2024-03?v=2026-10-24A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire chiang-kham-2024-03.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-02-24 | 0 | 0 | 36.4 | 17.4 | 24 | 8.6 | 24.5 | 0 | 30.1 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-02-25 | 0 | 0 | 34.4 | 20.2 | 43 | 7.9 | 27.7 | 0.9 | 18 | moderado | 0 |
| 2024-02-26 | 0 | 0 | 34.6 | 20.8 | 41 | 7.7 | 22.3 | 0 | 20.4 | moderado | 0 |
| 2024-02-27 | 0 | 0 | 35.2 | 22.4 | 44 | 10.5 | 33.1 | 0.5 | 22.3 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-02-28 | 0 | 0 | 35.5 | 23 | 36 | 12.6 | 40 | 0.1 | 26.4 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-02-29 | 0 | 0 | 37.1 | 21 | 25 | 8.7 | 24.1 | 0 | 30.1 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-03-01 | 0 | 0 | 37.3 | 20.2 | 22 | 10 | 30.2 | 0 | 33.8 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-03-02 | 5 | 4 | 34.2 | 22.4 | 38 | 13.7 | 36 | 0 | 31.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-03 | 2 | 3 | 35.4 | 21.9 | 32 | 11.6 | 29.5 | 0 | 30.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-04 | 0 | 0 | 36.7 | 20.1 | 23 | 9.4 | 28.8 | 0 | 33 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-05 | 6 | 43 | 36.5 | 18.2 | 25 | 11.3 | 31.3 | 0 | 35 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-06 | 12 | 40 | 35.7 | 19.4 | 23 | 11.1 | 28.8 | 0 | 35.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-07 | 8 | 16 | 36.2 | 17.8 | 32 | 6.4 | 22.7 | 0 | 31.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-08 | 13 | 38 | 37.3 | 19.5 | 31 | 10.8 | 33.5 | 0 | 35 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-09 | 2 | 3 | 36.3 | 23.5 | 31 | 13.8 | 35.3 | 0 | 38 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-10 | 1 | 2 | 37 | 22.4 | 27 | 11.9 | 32.8 | 0 | 36.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-11 | 2 | 3 | 37.3 | 21.1 | 23 | 12.1 | 33.5 | 0 | 37.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-12 | 4 | 7 | 35.9 | 22.6 | 33 | 14.5 | 37.4 | 0.4 | 38.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-13 | 1 | 2 | 36.5 | 21.6 | 22 | 10.5 | 29.5 | 0 | 36.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-14 | 0 | 0 | 35.8 | 19.5 | 26 | 10.2 | 26.3 | 0 | 36.7 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-03-15 | 0 | 0 | 35.5 | 18.2 | 29 | 7.8 | 20.2 | 0 | 34.8 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-03-16 | 0 | 0 | 36.9 | 19.5 | 26 | 7.9 | 25.6 | 0 | 35.2 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-03-17 | 0 | 0 | 37 | 22 | 32 | 10.1 | 25.6 | 0 | 36.2 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-03-18 | 0 | 0 | 36.9 | 23.1 | 31 | 6.3 | 21.6 | 0 | 33.3 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-03-19 | 0 | 0 | 35.7 | 24.2 | 36 | 14.8 | 32.4 | 16.9 | 7.6 | bajo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 1,703ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 12days
- 2 Mar 2024 – 13 Mar 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 2 Mar
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 56
- in a single hotspot: 10 MW
- Danger at start
- 30
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 15MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
2 Mar13 Mar
13 Mar 2024
How it evolved, day by day
5 Mar
9 Mar
12 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
37°high
40km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity
It had gone 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 16.9 mm on 19 Mar.
This area had burned before
86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 664 ha in 2016, 159 ha in 2018, 1,213 ha in 2019, 500 ha in 2021, 196 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,462 ha that had burned before.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Bangkok boundary: geoBoundaries · OpenStreetMap, Wambacher · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL 1.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Pong ปง1,007 ha reached on 2 Mar0.6 %
-
705 ha reached on 2 Mar0.8 %
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 2025Built-up area1.1 ha
Residents≈ 50
Inside the perimeter there were about 1.1 hectares of built-up land and about 50 residents (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 Feb | 36.4 °C | 24 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 25 Feb | 34.4 °C | 43 % | 28 km/h | 0.9 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 26 Feb | 34.6 °C | 41 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 27 Feb | 35.2 °C | 44 % | 33 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 22 |
| 28 Feb | 35.5 °C | 36 % | 40 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 26 |
| 29 Feb | 37.1 °C | 25 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 1 Mar | 37.3 °C | 22 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 2 Mar | 34.2 °C | 38 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 3 Mar | 35.4 °C | 32 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 4 Mar | 36.7 °C | 23 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 5 Mar | 36.5 °C | 25 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 6 Mar | 35.7 °C | 23 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 7 Mar | 36.2 °C | 32 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 8 Mar | 37.3 °C | 31 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 9 Mar | 36.3 °C | 31 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 10 Mar | 37.0 °C | 27 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 11 Mar | 37.3 °C | 23 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 12 Mar | 35.9 °C | 33 % | 37 km/h | 0.4 mm | Very high 38 |
| 13 Mar | 36.5 °C | 22 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 14 Mar after | 35.8 °C | 26 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 15 Mar after | 35.5 °C | 29 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 16 Mar after | 36.9 °C | 26 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 17 Mar after | 37.0 °C | 32 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 18 Mar after | 36.9 °C | 31 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 19 Mar after | 35.7 °C | 36 % | 32 km/h | 16.9 mm | Low 8 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 30.1, a minimum humidity of 38% and 24 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 68.
FWI at the start
30.1
Minimum humidity
38 %
Days without rain
24
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Chiang Kham fire, March 2024
1,703 ha
12 days
FWI 30.1
Min. humidity 38 %
Wiang Kaen fire, April 2023
1,037 ha
5 days
FWI 29.1
Min. humidity 36 %
66 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.1 mm on 22 Apr.
Na Noi fire, April 2023
1,286 ha
15 days
FWI 31.2
Min. humidity 39 %
117 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.1 mm on 27 Apr.
Thung Chang fire, April 2016
1,088 ha
5 days
FWI 28.7
Min. humidity 39 %
51 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.9 mm on 9 Apr.
Mae Taeng fire, March 2021
2,123 ha
15 days
FWI 28.3
Min. humidity 36 %
132 km away, in 2021
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 5.1 mm on 22 Mar.
Phu Sang fire, March 2019
1,422 ha
9 days
FWI 30.3
Min. humidity 34 %
34 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
What happened to them
- 9 days
- median duration
- 1,642 ha
- median area
- 100 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- 2.6 mm
- rain at the end (median; 42 of 68 had it)
It burned an area similar to its twins (1,703 ha against a median of 1,642 ha) and lasted 12 days, against 9 days.
In 26 of 68, 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 2.6 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
16.9 mmfirst rain
19 Mar6 days after it ended
40km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 13 Mar, and on 19 Mar 16.9 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 42 of 68, with a median of 2.6 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.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 24 Feb 2024
After · 20 Mar 2024
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 7 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 60 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 48: 3.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak60 µg/m³
Days over the guideline16 days
PM1089 µg/m³
Optical depth1.35
WHO 15
29 Feb4 Mar8 Mar12 Mar16 Mar
Good
Fair
Moderate
Poor
Very poor
Extremely poor
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 · 56Every 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 time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 6,933 haChiang Kham เชียงคำMarch 2020 · 16 days · 22 km away
- 6,073 haDok Khamtai ดอกคำใต้20 March 2026 · 15 days · 26 km away
- 5,089 haPong ปง29 March 2026 · 24 days · 26 km away
- 13,685 haPhu Sang ภูซางMarch 2026 · 20 days · 29 km away
- 14,483 haPong ปง27 March 2026 · 26 days · 33 km away
- 7,841 haKhopMarch 2026 · 31 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Chiang Kham fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 March 2024 and 13 March 2024: 12 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 1,703 hectares (17.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Pong (1,007 ha, 0.6 %); Chiang Kham (705 ha, 0.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 40 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.
- 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: 68. Their median duration was 9 days and their median area 1,642 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In 26 of 68, 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 2.6 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.
Emergency number: 199 · 191 · Emergency number and official warnings
Satellite cross-check
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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.
Report an error
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. 56 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 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.