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Mae Mo fire, March 2019 Mae Mo

Out · last detection 21 Mar 2019, 18:47 UTC

The fire started on 15 March 2019 in Mae Mo, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,016 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 194th largest in Lampang Province since 2016 (of 202 with a page). Number 488 in Thailand in 2019, of 503.

The power measured by the satellite is low (8.4 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
1,016ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
15 Mar 2019 – 21 Mar 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
15 Mar
2019
Heat detections
28
in a single hotspot: 8 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
67MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Mar 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Mar21 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

1516172021

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
38km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 26 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

60% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 431 ha in 2016, 436 ha in 2017, 179 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 608 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mae Mo where it started
    1,022 ha reached on 15 Mar
    0.9 %

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)
15 Mar 34.5 °C 34 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
16 Mar 35.9 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Mar 35.8 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
18 Mar 35.6 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Mar 35.0 °C 35 % 38 km/h 1.5 mm High 22
20 Mar 36.1 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
21 Mar 36.3 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Mar after 35.9 °C 26 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
23 Mar after 36.2 °C 28 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Mar after 36.4 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Mar after 35.5 °C 41 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Mar after 35.0 °C 44 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
27 Mar after 35.0 °C 38 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
28 Mar after 36.1 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
29 Mar after 36.6 °C 19 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
30 Mar after 36.3 °C 27 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
31 Mar after 36.9 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Mar 2019
After · 28 Mar 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 · 28Every 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 Mo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 March 2019 and 21 March 2019: 7 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 1,016 hectares (10.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mae Mo (1,022 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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.