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Pai fire, 13 March 2017 Pai

Out · last detection 31 Mar 2017, 06:17 UTC

The fire started on 13 March 2017 in Pai, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,340 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 43th largest in Mae Hong Son Province since 2016 (of 668 with a page). Number 4 in Thailand in 2017, of 240.

Burnt area
6,340ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
19days
13 Mar 2017 – 31 Mar 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
13 Mar
2017
Heat detections
262
in a single hotspot: 57 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Mar 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Mar31 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

13141516171819202122232425262728293031

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
54km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 53 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.4 mm on 1 Apr.

This area had burned before

53% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,550 ha in 2016. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,366 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Pai where it started
    6,378 ha reached on 13 Mar
    2.8 %

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)
6 Mar 34.4 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Mar 33.7 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Mar 33.2 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Mar 32.9 °C 27 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Mar 32.2 °C 39 % 49 km/h 0.2 mm High 32
11 Mar 33.6 °C 34 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Mar 33.3 °C 30 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
13 Mar 33.6 °C 29 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Mar 35.1 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Mar 35.1 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Mar 36.3 °C 17 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Mar 35.9 °C 19 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
18 Mar 35.6 °C 18 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Mar 34.4 °C 23 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Mar 34.1 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Mar 32.2 °C 32 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Mar 34.5 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Mar 36.3 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Mar 36.3 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Mar 36.3 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Mar 37.8 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
27 Mar 31.1 °C 35 % 35 km/h 2.2 mm Moderate 14
28 Mar 34.2 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
29 Mar 34.8 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Mar 35.1 °C 28 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
31 Mar 35.4 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Apr after 33.9 °C 34 % 33 km/h 5.4 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Mar 2017
After · 7 Apr 2017

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 · 262Every 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 Pai fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 March 2017 and 31 March 2017: 19 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 6,340 hectares (63.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pai (6,378 ha, 2.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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
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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.