Li fire, 25 February 2021 ลี้ · Li
The fire started on 25 February 2021 in Li, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,249 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 119th largest in Chiang Mai Province since 2016 (of 399 with a page). Number 44 in Thailand in 2021, of 187.
- Burnt area
- 2,249ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 13days
- 25 Feb 2021 – 9 Mar 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 25 Feb
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 66
- in a single hotspot: 32 MW
- Danger at start
- 29
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 24MW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 286 ha in 2016, 1,883 ha in 2017, 431 ha in 2018, 1,189 ha in 2019, 1,444 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,125 ha that had burned before.
- 1,752 ha Li fire, March 2017 3,816 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 993 ha Li fire, February 2019 1,767 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 968 ha Li fire, January 2020 1,064 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
-
2,259 ha reached on 26 Feb1.2 %
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 2020Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Feb | 33.6 °C | 24 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 17 Feb | 31.0 °C | 43 % | 34 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 26 |
| 18 Feb | 30.5 °C | 39 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 19 Feb | 29.8 °C | 34 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 20 Feb | 31.1 °C | 33 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 21 Feb | 32.6 °C | 29 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 22 Feb | 33.1 °C | 31 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 23 Feb | 32.0 °C | 41 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 24 Feb | 33.3 °C | 34 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 25 Feb | 34.4 °C | 25 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 26 Feb | 35.2 °C | 19 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 27 Feb | 34.2 °C | 21 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 28 Feb | 34.0 °C | 23 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 1 Mar | 35.4 °C | 15 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 2 Mar | 35.5 °C | 20 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 3 Mar | 35.9 °C | 25 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 4 Mar | 34.1 °C | 30 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 5 Mar | 36.0 °C | 22 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 6 Mar | 36.1 °C | 14 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 7 Mar | 36.5 °C | 18 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 8 Mar | 35.8 °C | 23 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 9 Mar | 35.7 °C | 20 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 10 Mar after | 34.9 °C | 23 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 11 Mar after | 34.5 °C | 28 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 12 Mar after | 34.2 °C | 31 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 13 Mar after | 33.8 °C | 32 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 14 Mar after | 32.7 °C | 39 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 15 Mar after | 35.6 °C | 28 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
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.
Detections table · 66Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 28,586 haLi ลี้19 March 2026 · 32 days · 6 km away
- 20,120 haLi ลี้23 March 2026 · 33 days · 20 km away
- 12,196 haMae Phrik แม่พริก1 March 2024 · 19 days · 21 km away
- 21,139 haMae Phrik แม่พริกFebruary 2019 · 37 days · 22 km away
- 45,311 haMae Phrik แม่พริกMarch 2026 · 37 days · 23 km away
- 18,226 haMae Phrik แม่พริก6 March 2025 · 27 days · 29 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Li fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 25 February 2021 to 9 March 2021 (13 days). The perimeter dates it from 26 February 2021 to 5 March 2021.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,249 hectares (22.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Li (2,259 ha, 1.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, class Very 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 5 March 2021 → 9 March 2021.
- Start date: 26 February 2021 → 25 February 2021.
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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 26 February 2021 to 5 March 2021. 66 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 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.