Dan Sai fire, 10 February 2020 ด่านซ้าย · Dan Sai
The fire started on 10 February 2020 in Dan Sai, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,537 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 59th largest in Loei Province since 2016 (of 113 with a page). Number 230 in Thailand in 2020, of 457.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 1,537ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 15days
- 10 Feb 2020 – 24 Feb 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 10 Feb
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 56
- in a single hotspot: 87 MW
- Danger at start
- 21
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 94MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,167 ha in 2016, 892 ha in 2017, 750 ha in 2018, 957 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,417 ha that had burned before.
- 1,073 ha Dan Sai fire, March 2016 6,404 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 957 ha Dan Sai fire, March 2019 4,640 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 709 ha Dan Sai fire, March 2018 1,102 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 41 ha Dan Sai fire, March 2018 2,046 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
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
-
1,546 ha reached on 10 Feb1.1 %
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 2020Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 Feb | 27.4 °C | 43 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 10 Feb | 27.2 °C | 42 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 11 Feb | 30.3 °C | 36 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 12 Feb | 29.2 °C | 48 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 13 Feb | 30.1 °C | 39 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 14 Feb | 29.0 °C | 41 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 15 Feb | 30.2 °C | 29 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 16 Feb | 31.7 °C | 27 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 17 Feb | 27.6 °C | 46 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 18 Feb | 25.5 °C | 47 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 19 Feb | 27.8 °C | 44 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 20 Feb | 28.0 °C | 42 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 21 Feb | 27.3 °C | 41 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 22 Feb | 27.0 °C | 42 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 23 Feb | 27.7 °C | 40 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 21 |
| 24 Feb | 28.4 °C | 39 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 25 Feb after | 30.6 °C | 31 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 26 Feb after | 30.4 °C | 33 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 27 Feb after | 29.0 °C | 38 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 28 Feb after | 30.2 °C | 33 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 29 Feb after | 30.4 °C | 41 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 1 Mar after | 29.8 °C | 50 % | 25 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 22 |
| 2 Mar after | 29.9 °C | 49 % | 29 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 24 |
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.
Detections table · 56Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 4,640 haDan Sai ด่านซ้าย5 March 2019 · 19 days · 3 km away
- 6,404 haDan Sai ด่านซ้ายMarch 2016 · 19 days · 5 km away
- 3,840 haNakhon Thai นครไทย10 February 2020 · 21 days · 17 km away
- 7,219 haLom Kao หล่มเก่า8 April 2026 · 14 days · 29 km away
- 7,064 haLom Kao หล่มเก่าFebruary 2021 · 10 days · 32 km away
- 5,317 haNa Haeo นาแห้ว20 March 2023 · 19 days · 32 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Dan Sai fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 10 February 2020 to 24 February 2020 (15 days). The perimeter dates it from 17 February 2020 to 21 February 2020.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,537 hectares (15.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Dan Sai (1,546 ha, 1.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 31.7 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 27, 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 · 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.
- Last day with fire: 21 February 2020 → 24 February 2020.
- Start date: 17 February 2020 → 10 February 2020.
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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 17 February 2020 to 21 February 2020. 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 2020, 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.