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Hot fire, January 2021 Hot, Chom Thong

Out · last detection 26 Jan 2021, 06:23 UTC

The fire started on 23 January 2021 in Hot, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,104 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 391th largest in Chiang Mai Province since 2016 (of 463 with a page). Number 221 in Thailand in 2021, of 268.

The power measured by the satellite is low (8.0 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
1,104ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
23 Jan 2021 – 26 Jan 2021
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
23 Jan
2021
Heat detections
23
in a single hotspot: 8 MW
Danger at start
22
High · FWI index
Energy released
107MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Jan 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jan26 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

23242526

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
34km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone 43 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.8 mm on 30 Jan.

This area had burned before

95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 442 ha in 2017, 280 ha in 2019, 940 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,048 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Hot where it started
    784 ha reached on 25 Jan
    0.5 %
  2. Chom Thong
    326 ha reached on 23 Jan
    0.3 %

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)
16 Jan 31.6 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
17 Jan 29.6 °C 49 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
18 Jan 26.8 °C 47 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
19 Jan 28.9 °C 43 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
20 Jan 30.9 °C 38 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
21 Jan 31.2 °C 38 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
22 Jan 31.0 °C 40 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
23 Jan 31.8 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
24 Jan 32.1 °C 32 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
25 Jan 33.3 °C 34 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
26 Jan 33.8 °C 34 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
27 Jan after 33.9 °C 40 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
28 Jan after 33.1 °C 43 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
29 Jan after 31.1 °C 53 % 30 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 16
30 Jan after 29.7 °C 61 % 27 km/h 5.8 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Jan 2021
After · 2 Feb 2021

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 · 23Every 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 23 January 2021 and 26 January 2021: 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 1,104 hectares (11.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Hot (784 ha, 0.5 %); Chom Thong (326 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.8 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 23, 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

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
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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.