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Li fire, 27 March 2024 Li

Out · last detection 31 Mar 2024, 18:05 UTC

The fire started on 27 March 2024 in Li, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,283 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 306th largest in Chiang Mai Province since 2016 (of 463 with a page). Number 222 in Thailand in 2024, of 350.

The power measured by the satellite is low (20.6 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
1,283ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
27 Mar 2024 – 31 Mar 2024
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
27 Mar
2024
Heat detections
49
in a single hotspot: 21 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
128MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Mar 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Mar31 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

2728293031

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
47km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 621 ha in 2016, 662 ha in 2017, 612 ha in 2019, 1,100 ha in 2020, 1,153 ha in 2021, 997 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,290 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Li where it started
    1,289 ha reached on 24 Mar
    0.7 %

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)
24 Mar 34.9 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
25 Mar 35.5 °C 16 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
26 Mar 36.6 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
27 Mar 35.2 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
28 Mar 36.5 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
29 Mar 35.6 °C 22 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Mar 36.4 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
31 Mar 36.2 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Apr after 37.0 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Apr after 37.5 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Apr after 37.2 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
4 Apr after 38.2 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
5 Apr after 38.5 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 Apr after 37.8 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Apr after 36.1 °C 31 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Apr after 36.7 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Apr after 37.6 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Apr after 32.8 °C 39 % 34 km/h 0.4 mm High 31

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Mar 2024
After · 7 Apr 2024

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 26 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 36 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 28: 1.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak36 µg/m³
Days over the guideline10 days
PM1059 µg/m³
Optical depth0.94
25262728293031123
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 · 49Every 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 27 March 2024 and 31 March 2024: 5 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 1,283 hectares (12.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Li (1,289 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 47 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
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.