Khlong Lan fire, 9 March 2024 คลองลาน · Khlong Lan
The fire started on 9 March 2024 in Khlong Lan, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,483 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 7th largest in Kamphaeng Phet Province since 2016 (of 65 with a page). Number 26 in Thailand in 2024, of 336.
The power measured by the satellite is low (19.6 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…
- Burnt area
- 4,483ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 10days
- 9 Mar 2024 – 18 Mar 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 9 Mar
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 156
- in a single hotspot: 20 MW
- Danger at start
- 18
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 57MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.0 mm on 19 Mar.
This area had burned before
93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,208 ha in 2016, 587 ha in 2017, 1,833 ha in 2019, 2,402 ha in 2020, 385 ha in 2021, 3,601 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,168 ha that had burned before.
- 1,804 ha Khlong Lan fire, January 2020 2,481 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 792 ha Khlong Lan fire, April 2023 2,552 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 144 ha Khlong Lan fire, March 2023 1,316 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 115 ha Khlong Lan fire, March 2017 2,143 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 39 ha Khlong Lan fire, January 2020 1,106 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Bangkok boundary: geoBoundaries · OpenStreetMap, Wambacher · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL 1.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
4,509 ha3.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 Mar | 33.2 °C | 36 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 6 Mar | 32.4 °C | 46 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 7 Mar | 32.6 °C | 51 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 8 Mar | 31.4 °C | 56 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 9 Mar | 32.0 °C | 49 % | 22 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 10 Mar | 32.9 °C | 43 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 11 Mar | 31.3 °C | 54 % | 25 km/h | 0.7 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 12 Mar | 31.6 °C | 62 % | 32 km/h | 2.3 mm | Very low 4 |
| 13 Mar | 34.2 °C | 37 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 14 Mar | 32.3 °C | 30 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 15 Mar | 32.3 °C | 45 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 16 Mar | 31.3 °C | 51 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 17 Mar | 31.2 °C | 50 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 18 Mar | 32.9 °C | 55 % | 22 km/h | 0.7 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 19 Mar after | 32.4 °C | 54 % | 26 km/h | 2.0 mm | Low 6 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 18 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 68 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 59: 3.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 156Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 50,877 haWang Chao วังเจ้าMarch 2026 · 33 days · 14 km away
- 13,720 haKhlong Lan คลองลาน9 March 2016 · 15 days · 14 km away
- 19,313 haPang Sila Thong ปางศิลาทอง23 March 2023 · 30 days · 29 km away
- 29,428 haMyawaddyFebruary 2026 · 15 days · 40 km away
- 15,759 haMae Wong แม่วงก์March 2019 · 14 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Khlong Lan fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 March 2024 and 18 March 2024: 10 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 4,483 hectares (44.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Khlong Lan (4,509 ha, 3.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 21, 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
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. 156 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.
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.