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Hot fire, 23 March 2026 ฮอด · Doi Tao, Hot

Out · last detection 10 Apr 2026, 06:06 UTC

The fire started on 23 March 2026 in Hot, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,142 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 20th largest in Chiang Mai Province since 2016 (of 399 with a page). Number 95 in Thailand in 2026, of 689.

The power measured by the satellite is low (8.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Hot · 2024Hot · 2020Doi Tao · 2020Hot · 2026

Burnt area
6,142ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
19days
23 Mar 2026 – 10 Apr 2026
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
23 Mar
2026
Heat detections
128
in a single hotspot: 8 MW
Danger at start
13
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
16MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Mar10 Apr
10 Apr 2026

How it evolved, day by day

23 Mar 2026 · 11 MW · 3 24 Mar 2026 · 2 MW · 1 25 Mar 2026 · 9 MW · 3 26 Mar 2026 · 3 MW · 1 27 Mar 2026 · 13 MW · 5 28 Mar 2026 · 36 MW · 12 29 Mar 2026 · 18 MW · 12 30 Mar 2026 · 11 MW · 5 31 Mar 2026 · 7 MW · 2 1 Apr 2026 · 16 MW · 12 2 Apr 2026 · 31 MW · 11 3 Apr 2026 · 47 MW · 22 4 Apr 2026 · 3 MW · 1 5 Apr 2026 · 2 MW · 1 7 Apr 2026 · 8 MW · 1 8 Apr 2026 · 28 MW · 21 9 Apr 2026 · 48 MW · 13 10 Apr 2026 · 4 MW · 1
23 Mar 26 Mar 29 Mar 1 Apr 4 Apr 8 Apr 9 Apr

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
41km/h · peak gust
31%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

85% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 970 ha in 2016, 1,695 ha in 2017, 354 ha in 2018, 2,351 ha in 2019, 3,940 ha in 2020, 1,803 ha in 2021, 2,470 ha in 2023, 1,650 ha in 2024, 1,571 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,239 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.9% of the area of London (61 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Doi Tao ดอยเต่า
    3,466 ha
    4.0 %
  2. Hot ฮอด where it started
    2,707 ha
    1.8 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area0.26 ha
Residents≈ 30

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.26 hectares of built-up land and about 30 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
23 Mar 33.3 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
24 Mar 33.8 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
25 Mar 34.0 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
26 Mar 35.0 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
27 Mar 34.8 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
28 Mar 34.8 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
29 Mar 35.0 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
30 Mar 35.1 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
31 Mar 34.8 °C 39 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
1 Apr 35.1 °C 38 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
2 Apr 35.9 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
3 Apr 36.1 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
4 Apr 34.0 °C 44 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
5 Apr 35.2 °C 42 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
6 Apr 34.6 °C 43 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
7 Apr 34.3 °C 43 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm High 25
8 Apr 35.3 °C 33 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
9 Apr 34.7 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
10 Apr 35.2 °C 34 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
11 Apr after 34.8 °C 35 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
12 Apr after 35.6 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
13 Apr after 36.2 °C 37 % 29 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
14 Apr after 36.5 °C 36 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
15 Apr after 36.5 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
16 Apr after 36.5 °C 34 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
17 Apr after 36.0 °C 36 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
18 Apr after 35.2 °C 39 % 25 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
19 Apr after 35.7 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Apr after 35.4 °C 38 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Mar 2026
After · 17 Apr 2026

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 26 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 98 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 53: 3.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak98 µg/m³
Days over the guideline23 days
PM10102 µg/m³
Optical depth1.34
212223242526272829303112345678910111213
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 · 128Every 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 March 2026 and 10 April 2026: 19 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 6,142 hectares (61.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Doi Tao (3,466 ha, 4.0 %); Hot (2,707 ha, 1.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.1 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 27, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 128 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.