Mae Phrik fire, March 2026 แม่พริก · Sam Ngao, Mae Phrik, Thoen
The fire started on 19 March 2026 in Mae Phrik, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 37 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 45,311 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.
It is the largest fire in Lampang Province since 2016 (of 217 with a page). Number 11 in Thailand in 2026, of 689.
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- Burnt area
- 45,311ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 37days
- 19 Mar 2026 – 24 Apr 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 4
- districts
- Started on
- 19 Mar
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 1,077
- in a single hotspot: 38 MW
- Danger at start
- 23
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 112MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 9.5 mm on 25 Apr.
This area had burned before
91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 8,083 ha in 2016, 12,396 ha in 2017, 9,031 ha in 2018, 22,974 ha in 2019, 11,692 ha in 2020, 16,354 ha in 2021, 3,377 ha in 2022, 18,789 ha in 2023, 14,984 ha in 2024, 22,171 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 41,144 ha that had burned before.
- 12,974 ha Mae Phrik fire, March 2025 18,226 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,558 ha Mae Phrik fire, March 2024 12,196 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,661 ha Sam Ngao fire, March 2023 12,046 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,183 ha Sam Ngao fire, February 2021 5,754 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,649 ha Mae Phrik fire, February 2019 21,139 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,987 ha Sam Ngao fire, March 2019 6,284 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,118 ha Mae Phrik fire, March 2017 2,747 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,017 ha Sam Ngao fire, March 2021 3,320 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Bangkok boundary: geoBoundaries · OpenStreetMap, Wambacher · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL 1.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Sam Ngao สามเงา22,585 ha reached on 28 Mar8.2 %
-
21,582 ha reached on 21 Mar32 %
-
Thoen เถิน773 ha reached on 23 Mar0.4 %
-
Li ลี้613 ha reached on 23 Mar0.3 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 11 hectares of built-up land and about 800 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 Mar | 36.0 °C | 28 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 20 Mar | 36.3 °C | 27 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 21 Mar | 35.7 °C | 31 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 22 Mar | 35.2 °C | 35 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 23 Mar | 36.4 °C | 24 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 24 Mar | 37.0 °C | 23 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 25 Mar | 37.2 °C | 25 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 26 Mar | 38.2 °C | 24 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 27 Mar | 37.9 °C | 24 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 28 Mar | 37.5 °C | 28 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 29 Mar | 37.4 °C | 27 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 30 Mar | 37.5 °C | 29 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 31 Mar | 37.8 °C | 28 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 1 Apr | 37.7 °C | 29 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 2 Apr | 38.2 °C | 26 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 3 Apr | 38.2 °C | 27 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 4 Apr | 36.8 °C | 34 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 5 Apr | 37.2 °C | 35 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 6 Apr | 37.8 °C | 32 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 7 Apr | 37.8 °C | 30 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 8 Apr | 38.1 °C | 27 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 9 Apr | 37.0 °C | 28 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 10 Apr | 38.0 °C | 27 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 11 Apr | 37.0 °C | 32 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 12 Apr | 38.1 °C | 27 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 13 Apr | 38.2 °C | 30 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 14 Apr | 38.8 °C | 25 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 15 Apr | 38.8 °C | 18 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 16 Apr | 39.5 °C | 17 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 17 Apr | 39.4 °C | 23 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 18 Apr | 39.3 °C | 24 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 19 Apr | 38.9 °C | 23 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 20 Apr | 37.6 °C | 33 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 21 Apr | 37.2 °C | 39 % | 30 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 34 |
| 22 Apr | 38.4 °C | 35 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 23 Apr | 37.1 °C | 35 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 24 Apr | 38.3 °C | 32 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 25 Apr after | 31.3 °C | 56 % | 36 km/h | 9.5 mm | Very low 4 |
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 26 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 91 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 53: 3.5 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 · 1,077Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 12,196 haMae Phrik แม่พริก1 March 2024 · 19 days · 4 km away
- 21,139 haMae Phrik แม่พริกFebruary 2019 · 37 days · 6 km away
- 18,226 haMae Phrik แม่พริก6 March 2025 · 27 days · 10 km away
- 12,046 haSam Ngao สามเงา18 March 2023 · 19 days · 19 km away
- 10,330 haSam Ngao สามเงา16 March 2025 · 16 days · 19 km away
- 28,586 haLi ลี้19 March 2026 · 32 days · 29 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mae Phrik fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 19 March 2026 to 24 April 2026 (37 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 March 2026 to 24 April 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 45,311 hectares (453.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 4 municipalities: Sam Ngao (22,585 ha, 8.2 %); Mae Phrik (21,582 ha, 32 %); Thoen (773 ha, 0.4 %); Li (613 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.5 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 21 March 2026 → 19 March 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 5 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 21 March 2026 to 24 April 2026. 1,077 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.
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.