How long did the Hang Chat fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 March 2024 and 14 March 2024: 6 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 1,452 hectares (14.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Hang Chat (1,461 ha, 2.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.9 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, 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.

TH · Thailand · 2024-03-09 → 2024-03-14

Hang Chat fire, March 2024 Hang Chat

Out · last detection 14 Mar 2024, 18:23 UTC

The fire started on 9 March 2024 in Hang Chat, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,452 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 97th largest in Lampang Province since 2016 (of 202 with a page). Number 177 in Thailand in 2024, of 350.

The power measured by the satellite is low (6.8 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 1,452ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 6days; 9 Mar 2024 – 14 Mar 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 9 Mar; 2024
Heat detections: 41; in a single hotspot: 7 MW
Danger at start: 29; High · FWI index
Energy released: 127MW; sum of detected power

Play back 14 Mar 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Mar14 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

91011121314

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

30km/h · peak gust

26%lowest humidity

It had gone 27 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 48.7 mm on 20 Mar.

This area had burned before

82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 230 ha in 2016, 488 ha in 2017, 540 ha in 2018, 316 ha in 2019, 99 ha in 2020, 69 ha in 2021, 150 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,188 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Hang Chat where it started

1,461 ha reached on 9 Mar

2.4 %

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)
9 Mar	37.9 °C	29 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
10 Mar	37.0 °C	30 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
11 Mar	37.0 °C	28 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
12 Mar	37.1 °C	32 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
13 Mar	36.7 °C	26 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
14 Mar	35.8 °C	27 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
15 Mar after	35.6 °C	32 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
16 Mar after	37.2 °C	31 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
17 Mar after	36.8 °C	34 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
18 Mar after	37.2 °C	34 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
19 Mar after	36.9 °C	38 %	38 km/h	0.2 mm	High 34
20 Mar after	29.2 °C	63 %	31 km/h	48.7 mm	Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 2 Mar 2024

After · 21 Mar 2024

Before After

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 · Copernicus

On 15 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 60 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 47: 3.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak60 µg/m³

Days over the guideline10 days

PM1090 µg/m³

Optical depth1.20

WHO 15

7891011121314151617

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 · 41Every 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

All fires in Thailand ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Hang Chat fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 March 2024 and 14 March 2024: 6 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 1,452 hectares (14.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Hang Chat (1,461 ha, 2.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.9 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned