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Hot fire, 23 February 2024 Hot, Mae Chaem, Chom Thong

Out · last detection 11 Mar 2024, 19:20 UTC

The fire started on 23 February 2024 in Hot, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,496 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 40th largest in Chiang Mai Province since 2016 (of 463 with a page). Number 28 in Thailand in 2024, of 350.

The power measured by the satellite is low (20.9 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
4,496ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
17days
23 Feb 2024 – 10 Mar 2024
Municipalities hit
3
districts
Started on
23 Feb
2024
Heat detections
215
in a single hotspot: 21 MW
Danger at start
19
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
528MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Mar 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Feb10 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

2324252628291234567891011

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
44km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 13.5 mm on 20 Mar.

This area had burned before

76% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 555 ha in 2016, 1,161 ha in 2017, 239 ha in 2018, 1,190 ha in 2019, 1,840 ha in 2020, 503 ha in 2021, 248 ha in 2022, 128 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,419 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Hot where it started
    3,068 ha reached on 16 Feb
    2.0 %
  2. Mae Chaem
    1,211 ha reached on 20 Feb
    0.4 %
  3. Chom Thong
    242 ha reached on 20 Feb
    0.2 %

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 Feb 34.4 °C 35 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
17 Feb 33.4 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
18 Feb 33.8 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
19 Feb 33.7 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
20 Feb 33.2 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
21 Feb 32.6 °C 29 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
22 Feb 33.5 °C 29 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
23 Feb 34.5 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
24 Feb 35.4 °C 27 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
25 Feb 36.5 °C 25 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
26 Feb 34.7 °C 41 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
27 Feb 33.6 °C 47 % 26 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 15
28 Feb 35.6 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
29 Feb 35.9 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
1 Mar 35.6 °C 30 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
2 Mar 36.4 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Mar 34.8 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
4 Mar 35.5 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 Mar 36.0 °C 29 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Mar 36.2 °C 31 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
7 Mar 35.3 °C 36 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
8 Mar 36.7 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
9 Mar 36.4 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Mar 36.0 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Mar after 36.3 °C 27 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Mar after 35.2 °C 32 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
13 Mar after 35.1 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Mar after 34.7 °C 32 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Mar after 34.6 °C 34 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
16 Mar after 35.6 °C 36 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Mar after 34.5 °C 40 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
18 Mar after 35.5 °C 39 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
19 Mar after 36.0 °C 36 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
20 Mar after 28.6 °C 65 % 27 km/h 13.5 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Feb 2024
After · 17 Mar 2024

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 7 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 35 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 25: 1.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak35 µg/m³
Days over the guideline9 days
PM1053 µg/m³
Optical depth0.77
21222324252627282912345678910111213
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 · 215Every 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 February 2024 and 10 March 2024: 17 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 4,496 hectares (45.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Hot (3,068 ha, 2.0 %); Mae Chaem (1,211 ha, 0.4 %); Chom Thong (242 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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
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.