Hang Chat fire, February 2019 ห้างฉัตร · Hang Chat
The fire started on 26 February 2019 in Hang Chat, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,127 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 174th largest in Lampang Province since 2016 (of 216 with a page). Number 311 in Thailand in 2019, of 386.
The power measured by the satellite is low (4.9 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 1,127ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 14days
- 26 Feb 2019 – 11 Mar 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 26 Feb
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 28
- in a single hotspot: 5 MW
- Danger at start
- 28
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 6MW
- 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 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
80% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 335 ha in 2016, 766 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 902 ha that had burned before.
- 478 ha Hang Chat fire, March 2017 1,274 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 288 ha Hang Chat fire, March 2017 1,141 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 27 ha Hang Chat fire, March 2016 1,545 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
-
1,134 ha reached on 26 Feb1.8 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 Feb | 34.9 °C | 28 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 27 Feb | 34.1 °C | 29 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 28 Feb | 34.4 °C | 31 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 1 Mar | 35.2 °C | 26 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 2 Mar | 35.1 °C | 26 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 3 Mar | 35.0 °C | 27 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 4 Mar | 35.0 °C | 26 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 5 Mar | 35.1 °C | 27 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 6 Mar | 35.1 °C | 28 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 7 Mar | 34.5 °C | 32 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 8 Mar | 35.4 °C | 27 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 9 Mar | 35.2 °C | 24 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 10 Mar | 34.1 °C | 26 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 11 Mar | 34.6 °C | 25 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 12 Mar after | 34.7 °C | 26 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 13 Mar after | 34.7 °C | 29 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 14 Mar after | 34.8 °C | 31 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 15 Mar after | 34.7 °C | 35 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 16 Mar after | 36.0 °C | 33 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
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 · 28Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 4,717 haHang Chat ห้างฉัตร24 March 2026 · 13 days · 2 km away
- 6,208 haHang Chat ห้างฉัตร25 March 2026 · 22 days · 11 km away
- 4,572 haMae Tha แม่ทา23 March 2026 · 11 days · 21 km away
- 4,675 haBan Thi บ้านธิMarch 2020 · 16 days · 23 km away
- 4,816 haMae On แม่ออน23 March 2026 · 11 days · 32 km away
- 18,078 haMueang Pan เมืองปาน24 March 2026 · 32 days · 33 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Hang Chat fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 February 2019 to 11 March 2019 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 March 2019 to 6 March 2019.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,127 hectares (11.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Hang Chat (1,134 ha, 1.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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: 6 March 2019 → 11 March 2019.
- Start date: 3 March 2019 → 26 February 2019.
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 3 March 2019 to 6 March 2019. 28 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.
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.