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Doi Saket fire, 23 March 2026 ดอยสะเก็ด · Mae On, Doi Saket

Out · last detection 22 Apr 2026, 07:22 UTC

The fire started on 23 March 2026 in Doi Saket, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 30 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,196 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 14th largest in Chiang Mai Province since 2016 (of 399 with a page). Number 71 in Thailand in 2026, of 689.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Mae On · 2026Mueang Pan · 2026Mueang Pan · 2026Ban Thi · 2020

Burnt area
9,196ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
30days
23 Mar 2026 – 21 Apr 2026
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
23 Mar
2026
Heat detections
250
in a single hotspot: 43 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Average daily power
40MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Mar21 Apr
22 Apr 2026

How it evolved, day by day

23 Mar 2026 · 11 MW · 9 24 Mar 2026 · 78 MW · 25 25 Mar 2026 · 12 MW · 4 26 Mar 2026 · 12 MW · 3 27 Mar 2026 · 4 MW · 2 28 Mar 2026 · 141 MW · 20 29 Mar 2026 · 21 MW · 7 31 Mar 2026 · 3 MW · 2 1 Apr 2026 · 2 MW · 3 2 Apr 2026 · 51 MW · 13 3 Apr 2026 · 17 MW · 7 4 Apr 2026 · 10 MW · 3 7 Apr 2026 · 2 MW · 1 8 Apr 2026 · 10 MW · 3 9 Apr 2026 · 19 MW · 3 12 Apr 2026 · 8 MW · 2 13 Apr 2026 · 34 MW · 15 14 Apr 2026 · 53 MW · 24 15 Apr 2026 · 217 MW · 35 16 Apr 2026 · 126 MW · 24 17 Apr 2026 · 17 MW · 3 18 Apr 2026 · 21 MW · 7 19 Apr 2026 · 138 MW · 26 20 Apr 2026 · 5 MW · 3 21 Apr 2026 · 2 MW · 2 22 Apr 2026 · 11 MW · 2
23 Mar 27 Mar 1 Apr 7 Apr 13 Apr 15 Apr 17 Apr 21 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

39°high
43km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 14.5 mm on 25 Apr.

This area had burned before

70% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 589 ha in 2016, 1,320 ha in 2017, 2,702 ha in 2019, 2,963 ha in 2020, 653 ha in 2021, 296 ha in 2022, 1,355 ha in 2023, 804 ha in 2024, 624 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,405 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 5.8% of the area of London (92 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. Mae On แม่ออน
    7,955 ha
    17 %
  2. Doi Saket ดอยสะเก็ด where it started
    1,296 ha
    2.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area6.2 ha
Residents≈ 850

Inside the perimeter there were about 6.2 hectares of built-up land and about 850 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
23 Mar 34.9 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
24 Mar 35.6 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 Mar 35.5 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Mar 36.0 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Mar 36.6 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Mar 36.5 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Mar 36.5 °C 24 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Mar 36.3 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
31 Mar 36.4 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Apr 36.2 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm High 34
2 Apr 37.0 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Apr 37.0 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Apr 35.9 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
5 Apr 37.0 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Apr 36.9 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
7 Apr 36.9 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Apr 37.9 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Apr 36.8 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
10 Apr 37.6 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Apr 37.0 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Apr 37.2 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
13 Apr 37.6 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
14 Apr 37.7 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Apr 38.6 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Apr 37.4 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Apr 37.5 °C 28 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Apr 37.6 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
19 Apr 38.3 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Apr 37.0 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
21 Apr 37.6 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Apr after 38.2 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Apr after 36.3 °C 38 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
24 Apr after 36.8 °C 41 % 28 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
25 Apr after 28.9 °C 65 % 32 km/h 14.5 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Mar 2026
After · 28 Apr 2026

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 17 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 184 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 106: 7.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak184 µg/m³
Days over the guideline35 days
PM10202 µg/m³
Optical depth2.05
2122232425262728293031123456789101112131415161718192021222324
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 · 250Every 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 Saket fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 March 2026 and 21 April 2026: 30 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 9,196 hectares (92.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mae On (7,955 ha, 17 %); Doi Saket (1,296 ha, 2.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 250 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.