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Hot fire, March 2019 Hot

Out · last detection 21 Mar 2019, 18:48 UTC

The fire started on 16 March 2019 in Hot, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,066 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 409th largest in Chiang Mai Province since 2016 (of 463 with a page). Number 447 in Thailand in 2019, of 503.

The power measured by the satellite is low (5.9 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
1,066ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
16 Mar 2019 – 21 Mar 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
16 Mar
2019
Heat detections
31
in a single hotspot: 6 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
56MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Mar 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Mar21 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

161718192021

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
45km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 20 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

28% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 296 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Hot where it started
    1,072 ha reached on 16 Mar
    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)
9 Mar 33.3 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Mar 34.1 °C 16 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
11 Mar 34.0 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
12 Mar 34.5 °C 19 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
13 Mar 34.1 °C 23 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Mar 34.0 °C 25 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 Mar 33.9 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
16 Mar 34.6 °C 25 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Mar 35.0 °C 23 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Mar 34.9 °C 24 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 Mar 33.7 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Mar 35.5 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Mar 35.6 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Mar after 34.3 °C 24 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
23 Mar after 34.5 °C 24 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Mar after 36.1 °C 21 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Mar after 36.3 °C 21 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Mar after 34.0 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Mar after 33.6 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Mar after 35.0 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
29 Mar after 35.4 °C 18 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Mar after 35.7 °C 21 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
31 Mar after 36.2 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Mar 2019
After · 28 Mar 2019

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 · 31Every 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 16 March 2019 and 21 March 2019: 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 1,066 hectares (10.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Hot (1,072 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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

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.