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Li fire, 19 February 2019 Li

Out · last detection 26 Feb 2019, 19:19 UTC

The fire started on 19 February 2019 in Li, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,767 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 187th largest in Chiang Mai Province since 2016 (of 463 with a page). Number 185 in Thailand in 2019, of 503.

Burnt area
1,767ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
19 Feb 2019 – 26 Feb 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
19 Feb
2019
Heat detections
62
in a single hotspot: 77 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index
Energy released
360MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Feb 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Feb26 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

1920212223242526

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
30km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

83% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 688 ha in 2016, 1,032 ha in 2017, 420 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,472 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Li where it started
    1,775 ha reached on 19 Feb
    1.0 %

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)
19 Feb 31.8 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
20 Feb 32.9 °C 21 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
21 Feb 33.6 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Feb 34.1 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Feb 34.5 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
24 Feb 34.6 °C 21 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
25 Feb 34.0 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Feb 34.4 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
27 Feb after 33.7 °C 25 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Feb after 33.8 °C 25 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
1 Mar after 33.9 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Mar after 34.0 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Mar after 33.7 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Mar after 33.0 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Mar after 33.0 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
6 Mar after 34.0 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Mar after 32.9 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Mar after 33.2 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Feb 2019
After · 5 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 · 62Every 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 Li fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 February 2019 and 26 February 2019: 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 1,767 hectares (17.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Li (1,775 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.6 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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.