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Doi Lo fire, March 2017 ดอยหล่อ · Chom Thong, Doi Lo

Out · last detection 15 Mar 2017, 18:47 UTC

The fire started on 11 March 2017 in Doi Lo, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,686 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 179th largest in Chiang Mai Province since 2016 (of 399 with a page). Number 59 in Thailand in 2017, of 155.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Doi Lo · 2024Mae Chaem · 2026Samoeng · 2020Chom Thong · 2026

Burnt area
1,686ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
11 Mar 2017 – 14 Mar 2017
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
11 Mar
2017
Heat detections
69
in a single hotspot: 34 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Average daily power
67MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Mar14 Mar
15 Mar 2017

How it evolved, day by day

11 Mar 2017 · 17 MW · 4 12 Mar 2017 · 109 MW · 22 13 Mar 2017 · 121 MW · 16 14 Mar 2017 · 84 MW · 8 15 Mar 2017 · 2 MW · 1
11 Mar 12 Mar 13 Mar 14 Mar 15 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

38°high
36km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 52 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

8% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 143 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.1% of the area of London (17 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. Chom Thong จอมทอง
    1,498 ha
    1.3 %
  2. Doi Lo ดอยหล่อ where it started
    198 ha
    0.9 %

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 2015
Built-up area0.38 ha
Residents≈ 50

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.38 hectares of built-up land and about 50 residents (GHSL 2015, 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)
6 Mar 36.1 °C 24 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Mar 36.2 °C 21 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
8 Mar 35.6 °C 29 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Mar 36.0 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Mar 35.9 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
11 Mar 36.9 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Mar 37.9 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Mar 37.5 °C 21 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Mar 37.5 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 Mar after 38.1 °C 15 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Mar after 38.9 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Mar after 37.8 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Mar after 37.8 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Mar after 37.9 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Mar after 37.7 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Mar after 36.4 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
22 Mar after 36.3 °C 23 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Mar after 37.8 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Mar after 38.7 °C 25 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Mar 2017
After · 21 Mar 2017

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 · 69Every 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 Doi Lo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 March 2017 and 14 March 2017: 4 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 1,686 hectares (16.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Chom Thong (1,498 ha, 1.3 %); Doi Lo (198 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.9 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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 · 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

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.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 69 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 2015, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.