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Mae Chaem fire, 23 April 2019 Mae Chaem

Out · last detection 2 May 2019, 19:00 UTC

The fire started on 23 April 2019 in Mae Chaem, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,762 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 188th largest in Chiang Mai Province since 2016 (of 463 with a page). Number 187 in Thailand in 2019, of 503.

Burnt area
1,762ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
23 Apr 2019 – 2 May 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
23 Apr
2019
Heat detections
68
in a single hotspot: 32 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
496MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 May 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Apr2 May

How it evolved, day by day

2325262728293012

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
24%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 3 May.

This area had burned before

43% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 714 ha in 2016, 127 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 752 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mae Chaem where it started
    1,772 ha reached on 19 Apr
    0.6 %

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 Apr 35.2 °C 37 % 46 km/h 0.8 mm High 30
20 Apr 35.6 °C 35 % 40 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
21 Apr 34.4 °C 34 % 39 km/h 1.6 mm Moderate 21
22 Apr 33.8 °C 35 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm High 25
23 Apr 36.5 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Apr 35.8 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Apr 34.5 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Apr 36.0 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Apr 35.8 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Apr 35.4 °C 24 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Apr 36.1 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 39
30 Apr 36.7 °C 27 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 May 34.7 °C 35 % 40 km/h 0.5 mm High 37
2 May 33.4 °C 43 % 37 km/h 1.7 mm Moderate 17
3 May after 33.6 °C 44 % 42 km/h 1.6 mm Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Apr 2019
After · 9 May 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 · 68Every 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 Mae Chaem fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 April 2019 and 2 May 2019: 10 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 1,762 hectares (17.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mae Chaem (1,772 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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

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.