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Doi Tao fire, March 2023 ดอยเต่า · Doi Tao, Li

Out · last detection 4 Apr 2023, 07:03 UTC

The fire started on 27 March 2023 in Doi Tao, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,829 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 161th largest in Chiang Mai Province since 2016 (of 449 with a page). Number 137 in Thailand in 2023, of 463.

The power measured by the satellite is low (11.7 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: Li · 2026Li · 2026Hot · 2026Hot · 2026

Burnt area
1,829ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
27 Mar 2023 – 4 Apr 2023
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
27 Mar
2023
Heat detections
59
in a single hotspot: 12 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index
Average daily power
19MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Mar4 Apr
4 Apr 2023

How it evolved, day by day

27 Mar 2023 · 1 MW · 1 28 Mar 2023 · 9 MW · 5 29 Mar 2023 · 32 MW · 8 30 Mar 2023 · 56 MW · 17 31 Mar 2023 · 48 MW · 16 1 Apr 2023 · 7 MW · 2 2 Apr 2023 · 3 MW · 1 3 Apr 2023 · 10 MW · 5 4 Apr 2023 · 4 MW · 1
27 Mar 29 Mar 30 Mar 31 Mar 2 Apr 4 Apr

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
41km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

53% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 225 ha in 2017, 285 ha in 2019, 408 ha in 2020, 233 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 965 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.2% of the area of London (18 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. Doi Tao ดอยเต่า where it started
    1,809 ha
    2.1 %
  2. Li ลี้
    29 ha
    0.0 %

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)
25 Mar 35.4 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
26 Mar 35.0 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
27 Mar 36.1 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
28 Mar 37.0 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
29 Mar 35.0 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
30 Mar 35.9 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
31 Mar 35.3 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
1 Apr 35.9 °C 32 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
2 Apr 36.1 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Apr 35.0 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Apr 36.0 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Apr after 36.6 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Apr after 36.8 °C 29 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
7 Apr after 37.0 °C 32 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
8 Apr after 36.7 °C 33 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Apr after 37.1 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
10 Apr after 37.7 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Apr after 38.4 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Apr after 37.5 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Apr after 38.5 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Apr after 39.5 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Mar 2023
After · 11 Apr 2023

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 · Copernicus

On 6 April 2023 the air beside the fire reached 52 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 33: 2.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak52 µg/m³
Days over the guideline13 days
PM1075 µg/m³
Optical depth1.32
252627282930311234567
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 59Every 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 Doi Tao fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 March 2023 and 4 April 2023: 9 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 1,829 hectares (18.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Doi Tao (1,809 ha, 2.1 %); Li (29 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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.

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. 59 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.

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.