Li fire, 10 March 2024 Li
The fire started on 10 March 2024 in Li, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,771 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 37th largest in Chiang Mai Province since 2016 (of 463 with a page). Number 27 in Thailand in 2024, of 350.
The power measured by the satellite is low (19.9 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 4,771ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 8days
- 10 Mar 2024 – 17 Mar 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 10 Mar
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 139
- in a single hotspot: 20 MW
- Danger at start
- 32
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 407MW
- sum of detected power
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 39 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 20.7 mm on 20 Mar.
This area had burned before
87% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 606 ha in 2016, 662 ha in 2017, 1,416 ha in 2018, 2,214 ha in 2019, 1,330 ha in 2020, 2,593 ha in 2021, 1,328 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,143 ha that had burned before.
- 823 ha Li fire, February 2021 1,018 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 685 ha Li fire, February 2021 1,500 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 572 ha Li fire, February 2019 1,038 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 373 ha Sam Ngao fire, February 2019 2,639 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 370 ha Li fire, March 2018 1,170 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 123 ha Li fire, January 2020 1,659 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6 ha Li fire, March 2017 3,816 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Li where it started4,796 ha reached on 10 Mar2.7 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 Mar | 35.8 °C | 26 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 11 Mar | 36.1 °C | 25 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 12 Mar | 35.8 °C | 27 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 13 Mar | 35.0 °C | 22 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 14 Mar | 34.9 °C | 28 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 15 Mar | 34.6 °C | 30 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 16 Mar | 35.7 °C | 29 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 17 Mar | 35.3 °C | 32 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 18 Mar after | 35.6 °C | 35 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 19 Mar after | 35.9 °C | 33 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 20 Mar after | 28.1 °C | 69 % | 27 km/h | 20.7 mm | Very low 0 |
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 17 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 66 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 50: 3.3 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 · 139Every 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 haLi20 March 2026 · 24 days · 5 km away
- 20,120 haLi23 March 2026 · 33 days · 17 km away
- 21,139 haSam Ngao6 February 2019 · 33 days · 33 km away
- 12,196 haSam Ngao1 March 2024 · 19 days · 33 km away
- 45,311 haSam Ngao21 March 2026 · 35 days · 34 km away
- 10,330 haSam Ngao16 March 2025 · 16 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Li fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 March 2024 and 17 March 2024: 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 4,771 hectares (47.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Li (4,796 ha, 2.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.1 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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
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.