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Pai fire, 11 February 2020 Pai

Out · last detection 14 Feb 2020, 06:29 UTC

The fire started on 11 February 2020 in Pai, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,338 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 215th largest in Mae Hong Son Province since 2016 (of 668 with a page). Number 193 in Thailand in 2020, of 666.

Burnt area
2,338ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
11 Feb 2020 – 14 Feb 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
11 Feb
2020
Heat detections
70
in a single hotspot: 67 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
390MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Feb 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Feb14 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

11121314

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
50km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 42 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,122 ha in 2016, 2,003 ha in 2017, 850 ha in 2018, 2,111 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,323 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Pai where it started
    2,350 ha reached on 11 Feb
    1.0 %

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)
11 Feb 33.6 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
12 Feb 33.0 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Feb 32.5 °C 27 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Feb 32.1 °C 15 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Feb after 33.0 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Feb after 34.4 °C 27 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Feb after 35.3 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Feb after 33.7 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
19 Feb after 33.8 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
20 Feb after 34.3 °C 29 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
21 Feb after 32.6 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
22 Feb after 32.2 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
23 Feb after 33.6 °C 31 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
24 Feb after 33.1 °C 35 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 27

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Feb 2020
After · 21 Feb 2020

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 · 70Every 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 11 February 2020 and 14 February 2020: 4 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 2,338 hectares (23.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pai (2,350 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.6 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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
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.