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Kaeng Khoi fire, February 2016 แก่งคอย · Kaeng Khoi, Mueang Nakhon Nayok, Ban Na

Out · last detection 4 Mar 2016, 07:07 UTC

The fire started on 26 February 2016 in Kaeng Khoi, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,459 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

Number 47 in Thailand in 2016, of 387.

The power measured by the satellite is low (17.2 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: Kaeng Khoi · 2020Kaeng Khoi · 2020Pak Phli · 2026Ongkharak · 2026

Burnt area
3,459ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
26 Feb 2016 – 4 Mar 2016
Municipalities hit
3
districts
Started on
26 Feb
2016
Heat detections
99
in a single hotspot: 17 MW
Danger at start
17
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
36MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Feb4 Mar
4 Mar 2016

How it evolved, day by day

26 Feb 2016 · 1 MW · 1 27 Feb 2016 · 6 MW · 2 28 Feb 2016 · 10 MW · 7 29 Feb 2016 · 30 MW · 17 1 Mar 2016 · 131 MW · 44 2 Mar 2016 · 47 MW · 19 3 Mar 2016 · 34 MW · 4 4 Mar 2016 · 32 MW · 5
26 Feb 28 Feb 1 Mar 3 Mar

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
51km/h · peak gust
39%lowest humidity

It had gone 25 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 6 Mar.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.2% of the area of London (35 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. Kaeng Khoi แก่งคอย where it started
    3,463 ha reached on 26 Feb
    4.2 %
  2. Mueang Nakhon Nayok เมืองนครนายก
    11 ha
    0.0 %
  3. Ban Na บ้านนา
    4 ha
    0.0 %

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 2015
Built-up area0.60 ha
Residents≈ 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.60 hectares of built-up land and about 20 residents (GHSL 2015, 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.

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)
26 Feb 30.4 °C 47 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
27 Feb 29.8 °C 47 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
28 Feb 31.5 °C 44 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
29 Feb 29.5 °C 45 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
1 Mar 30.9 °C 40 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
2 Mar 32.0 °C 41 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
3 Mar 33.4 °C 39 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
4 Mar 32.9 °C 49 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
5 Mar after 32.2 °C 57 % 25 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 14
6 Mar after 32.9 °C 61 % 25 km/h 2.4 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Feb 2016
After · 11 Mar 2016

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 · 99Every 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 Kaeng Khoi fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 February 2016 and 4 March 2016: 8 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 3,459 hectares (34.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Kaeng Khoi (3,463 ha, 4.2 %); Mueang Nakhon Nayok (11 ha, 0.0 %); Ban Na (4 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.4 °C, humidity dropped to 39 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, 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 · 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.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 99 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 2015, 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.