Skip to content
worldfires
TH · Thailand · →

Dan Sai fire, 10 March 2019 Dan Sai

Out · last detection 16 Mar 2019, 06:10 UTC

The fire started on 10 March 2019 in Dan Sai, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,640 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 16th largest in Loei Province since 2016 (of 192 with a page). Number 32 in Thailand in 2019, of 503.

Burnt area
4,640ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
10 Mar 2019 – 16 Mar 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
10 Mar
2019
Heat detections
190
in a single hotspot: 63 MW
Danger at start
21
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Mar 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Mar16 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

10111213141516

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
44km/h · peak gust
32%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.8 mm on 26 Mar.

This area had burned before

96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,678 ha in 2016, 2,801 ha in 2017, 3,194 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,465 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Dan Sai where it started
    4,666 ha reached on 5 Mar
    3.4 %

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)
5 Mar 32.0 °C 40 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
6 Mar 32.7 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
7 Mar 32.7 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
8 Mar 32.2 °C 40 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
9 Mar 32.6 °C 33 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
10 Mar 31.8 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
11 Mar 32.8 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
12 Mar 32.7 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
13 Mar 32.4 °C 33 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
14 Mar 32.6 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
15 Mar 33.7 °C 36 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
16 Mar 31.4 °C 54 % 24 km/h 1.7 mm Low 8
17 Mar after 32.7 °C 46 % 22 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 16
18 Mar after 32.9 °C 45 % 22 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 18
19 Mar after 31.6 °C 50 % 35 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 17
20 Mar after 32.5 °C 41 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
21 Mar after 34.2 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
22 Mar after 34.7 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
23 Mar after 35.6 °C 28 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
24 Mar after 33.4 °C 41 % 22 km/h 0.3 mm High 26
25 Mar after 32.4 °C 51 % 23 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 16
26 Mar after 32.3 °C 51 % 26 km/h 2.8 mm Low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Mar 2019
After · 23 Mar 2019

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 · 190Every 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 Dan Sai fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 March 2019 and 16 March 2019: 7 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 4,640 hectares (46.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Dan Sai (4,666 ha, 3.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, class 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
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.

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.