Mae Poen fire, 23 March 2026 แม่เปิน · Mae Wong, Pang Sila Thong, Mae Poen
The fire started on 23 March 2026 in Mae Poen, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 31 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 57,928 hectares from heat detections, spread across 6 municipalities.
It is the largest fire in Nakhon Sawan Province since 2016 (of 39 with a page). Number 5 in Thailand in 2026, of 689.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 57,928ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 31days
- 23 Mar 2026 – 22 Apr 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 6
- districts
- Started on
- 23 Mar
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 1,898
- in a single hotspot: 31 MW
- Danger at start
- 16
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 284MW
- 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 one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 24 Apr.
This area had burned before
94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 17,815 ha in 2016, 8,274 ha in 2017, 2,459 ha in 2018, 38,945 ha in 2019, 20,565 ha in 2020, 13,890 ha in 2021, 2,016 ha in 2022, 36,629 ha in 2023, 18,955 ha in 2024, 14,683 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 54,292 ha that had burned before.
- 14,890 ha Mae Wong fire, March 2019 15,759 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 8,070 ha Pang Sila Thong fire, March 2023 19,313 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,720 ha Pang Sila Thong fire, February 2021 5,814 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,786 ha Pang Sila Thong fire, February 2024 4,867 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,512 ha Mae Wong fire, January 2020 5,298 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,924 ha Pang Sila Thong fire, March 2016 6,697 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,673 ha Pang Sila Thong fire, March 2019 2,704 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,400 ha Mae Poen fire, March 2016 2,429 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
-
Mae Wong แม่วงก์21,204 ha reached on 23 Mar21 %
-
Pang Sila Thong ปางศิลาทอง19,506 ha reached on 26 Mar26 %
-
8,032 ha reached on 24 Mar24 %
-
Khlong Lan คลองลาน7,639 ha reached on 30 Mar5.2 %
-
Lan Sak ลานสัก1,846 ha reached on 24 Mar1.3 %
-
Khanu Woralaksaburi ขาณุวรลักษบุรี27 ha reached on 9 Apr0.0 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 13 hectares of built-up land and about 1,000 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 | 36.9 °C | 38 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 24 Mar | 37.2 °C | 40 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 25 Mar | 36.9 °C | 39 % | 24 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 26 Mar | 37.4 °C | 42 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 27 Mar | 37.6 °C | 39 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 28 Mar | 36.0 °C | 43 % | 30 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 29 Mar | 35.9 °C | 40 % | 18 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 30 Mar | 36.5 °C | 42 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 31 Mar | 36.6 °C | 43 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 1 Apr | 37.5 °C | 38 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 2 Apr | 38.3 °C | 37 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 3 Apr | 38.7 °C | 33 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 4 Apr | 37.8 °C | 37 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 5 Apr | 38.2 °C | 36 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 6 Apr | 38.3 °C | 35 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 7 Apr | 38.5 °C | 35 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 8 Apr | 39.3 °C | 32 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 9 Apr | 38.4 °C | 33 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 10 Apr | 39.3 °C | 27 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 11 Apr | 38.2 °C | 35 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 12 Apr | 38.6 °C | 34 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 13 Apr | 38.4 °C | 32 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 14 Apr | 39.6 °C | 28 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 15 Apr | 39.2 °C | 29 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 16 Apr | 39.4 °C | 30 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 17 Apr | 38.4 °C | 33 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 18 Apr | 38.5 °C | 34 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 19 Apr | 38.3 °C | 35 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 20 Apr | 39.5 °C | 29 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 21 Apr | 39.3 °C | 32 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 22 Apr | 38.9 °C | 39 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 23 Apr after | 38.1 °C | 38 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 24 Apr after | 36.8 °C | 48 % | 29 km/h | 1.1 mm | Moderate 18 |
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 12 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 77 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 47: 3.2 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 · 1,898Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mae Poen fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 March 2026 to 22 April 2026 (31 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 March 2026 to 22 April 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 57,928 hectares (579.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 6 municipalities: Mae Wong (21,204 ha, 21 %); Pang Sila Thong (19,506 ha, 26 %); Mae Poen (8,032 ha, 24 %); Khlong Lan (7,639 ha, 5.2 %); Lan Sak (1,846 ha, 1.3 %); Khanu Woralaksaburi (27 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.6 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 32 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 · 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: 25 March 2026 → 23 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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 25 March 2026 to 22 April 2026. 1,898 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.