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Hot fire, January 2016 Hot

Out · last detection 9 Jan 2016, 06:00 UTC

The fire started on 7 January 2016 in Hot, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,013 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 453th largest in Chiang Mai Province since 2016 (of 463 with a page). Number 508 in Thailand in 2016, of 527.

The power measured by the satellite is low (8.5 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
1,013ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
7 Jan 2016 – 10 Jan 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
7 Jan
2016
Heat detections
30
in a single hotspot: 9 MW
Danger at start
13
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
64MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Jan 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Jan10 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

789

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
31km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Hot where it started
    1,019 ha reached on 7 Jan
    0.7 %

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)
7 Jan 30.6 °C 32 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
8 Jan 30.8 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
9 Jan 28.7 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
10 Jan 28.7 °C 35 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
11 Jan after 28.2 °C 42 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
12 Jan after 29.1 °C 37 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
13 Jan after 28.6 °C 51 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 14
14 Jan after 30.9 °C 40 % 39 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 16
15 Jan after 31.2 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
16 Jan after 30.8 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
17 Jan after 29.9 °C 31 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
18 Jan after 30.9 °C 23 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
19 Jan after 31.7 °C 30 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
20 Jan after 33.5 °C 27 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 22

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Dec 2015
After · 17 Jan 2016

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 · 30Every 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 Hot fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 January 2016 and 10 January 2016: 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 1,013 hectares (10.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Hot (1,019 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.8 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 17, class Moderate.
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.