Pai fire, 3 March 2021 ปาย · Pai
The fire started on 3 March 2021 in Pai, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,321 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 257th largest in Mae Hong Son Province since 2016 (of 387 with a page). Number 104 in Thailand in 2021, of 187.
The power measured by the satellite is low (6.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Pai · 2020Pai · 2016Pang Mapha · 2017Pai · 2019
- Burnt area
- 1,321ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 8days
- 3 Mar 2021 – 10 Mar 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 3 Mar
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 33
- in a single hotspot: 6 MW
- Danger at start
- 30
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 9MW
- 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 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 585 ha in 2016, 345 ha in 2017, 331 ha in 2018, 707 ha in 2019, 794 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,299 ha that had burned before.
- 701 ha Pai fire, March 2020 1,632 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 548 ha Pai fire, March 2016 1,114 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 271 ha Pang Mapha fire, March 2017 2,276 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 143 ha Pai fire, March 2019 1,388 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 78 ha Pai fire, February 2019 2,212 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
-
1,328 ha0.6 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Mar | 32.3 °C | 28 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 4 Mar | 32.7 °C | 25 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 5 Mar | 32.5 °C | 18 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 6 Mar | 32.0 °C | 16 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 7 Mar | 32.8 °C | 18 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 8 Mar | 32.7 °C | 20 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 9 Mar | 33.3 °C | 20 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 10 Mar | 33.0 °C | 25 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 11 Mar after | 33.3 °C | 27 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 12 Mar after | 33.9 °C | 25 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 13 Mar after | 34.6 °C | 21 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 14 Mar after | 32.7 °C | 32 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 15 Mar after | 34.4 °C | 25 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 16 Mar after | 35.0 °C | 23 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 17 Mar after | 35.6 °C | 24 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 18 Mar after | 35.1 °C | 26 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 19 Mar after | 35.8 °C | 27 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 20 Mar after | 36.7 °C | 23 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
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.
Detections table · 33Every 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 Pai fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 March 2021 and 10 March 2021: 8 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 1,321 hectares (13.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Pai (1,328 ha, 0.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.3 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 48 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 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.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 33 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.
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.