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Lan Sak fire, 3 March 2019 Lan Sak, Mae Poen

Out · last detection 17 Mar 2019, 18:23 UTC

The fire started on 3 March 2019 in Lan Sak, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 20,476 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 4th largest in Uthai Thani Province since 2016 (of 72 with a page). Number 4 in Thailand in 2019, of 503.

Burnt area
20,476ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
3 Mar 2019 – 17 Mar 2019
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
3 Mar
2019
Heat detections
778
in a single hotspot: 55 MW
Danger at start
17
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
4.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Mar 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Mar17 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

34567891011121314151617

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
33km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 18 Mar.

This area had burned before

84% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 17,093 ha in 2016, 2,583 ha in 2017, 1,401 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 17,194 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Lan Sak where it started
    20,565 ha reached on 3 Mar
    14 %
  2. Mae Poen
    29 ha reached on 5 Mar
    0.1 %

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)
24 Feb 35.0 °C 37 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
25 Feb 34.9 °C 40 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
26 Feb 33.1 °C 46 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
27 Feb 33.0 °C 50 % 18 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 13
28 Feb 33.1 °C 48 % 20 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 14
1 Mar 34.0 °C 45 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
2 Mar 35.9 °C 40 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
3 Mar 35.6 °C 32 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
4 Mar 35.4 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
5 Mar 35.2 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
6 Mar 35.8 °C 31 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
7 Mar 35.8 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
8 Mar 36.2 °C 34 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
9 Mar 36.2 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
10 Mar 36.2 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
11 Mar 36.3 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
12 Mar 36.5 °C 21 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
13 Mar 35.3 °C 31 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
14 Mar 35.6 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
15 Mar 34.9 °C 44 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
16 Mar 33.3 °C 50 % 24 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 21
17 Mar 34.6 °C 51 % 25 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 20
18 Mar after 34.6 °C 46 % 20 km/h 2.1 mm Low 10

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Feb 2019
After · 24 Mar 2019

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 · 778Every 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 Lan Sak fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 March 2019 and 17 March 2019: 15 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 20,476 hectares (204.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Lan Sak (20,565 ha, 14 %); Mae Poen (29 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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.

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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.