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Hot fire, 12 January 2020 Hot

Out · last detection 15 Jan 2020, 18:22 UTC

The fire started on 12 January 2020 in Hot, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,420 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 258th largest in Chiang Mai Province since 2016 (of 463 with a page). Number 393 in Thailand in 2020, of 666.

The power measured by the satellite is low (7.7 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
1,420ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
12 Jan 2020 – 15 Jan 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
12 Jan
2020
Heat detections
42
in a single hotspot: 8 MW
Danger at start
9
Low · FWI index
Energy released
115MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Jan 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Jan15 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

12131415

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
28km/h · peak gust
33%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

37% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 106 ha in 2016, 282 ha in 2017, 165 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Hot where it started
    1,429 ha reached on 12 Jan
    1.0 %

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)
2 Jan 29.4 °C 55 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
3 Jan 30.1 °C 53 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
4 Jan 31.3 °C 48 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 12
5 Jan 31.3 °C 53 % 25 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 12
6 Jan 32.6 °C 46 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
7 Jan 32.4 °C 46 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
8 Jan 31.7 °C 47 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
9 Jan 32.7 °C 42 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
10 Jan 33.2 °C 38 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
11 Jan 32.8 °C 33 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
12 Jan 31.2 °C 38 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
13 Jan 32.1 °C 43 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
14 Jan 32.9 °C 37 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
15 Jan 32.8 °C 36 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
16 Jan after 32.9 °C 36 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
17 Jan after 32.5 °C 39 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
18 Jan after 33.1 °C 40 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
19 Jan after 33.4 °C 35 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
20 Jan after 33.2 °C 36 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
21 Jan after 33.5 °C 39 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
22 Jan after 34.5 °C 33 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
23 Jan after 33.9 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
24 Jan after 32.6 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
25 Jan after 31.7 °C 23 % 40 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.

Before · 5 Jan 2020
After · 22 Jan 2020

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 · 42Every 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 12 January 2020 and 15 January 2020: 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 1,420 hectares (14.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Hot (1,429 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.2 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 28 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 19, 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.