How long did the Pak Phli fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 March 2026 and 13 March 2026: 13 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 3,428 hectares (34.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Pak Phli (1,950 ha, 4.5 %); Mueang Nakhon Nayok (1,496 ha, 1.8 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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.

TH · Thailand · 2026-03-01 → 2026-03-13

Pak Phli fire, March 2026 Pak Phli, Mueang Nakhon Nayok

Out · last detection 14 Mar 2026, 06:10 UTC

The fire started on 1 March 2026 in Pak Phli, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,428 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in Nakhon Nayok Province since 2016 (of 10 with a page). Number 209 in Thailand in 2026, of 880.

Burnt area: 3,428ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 13days; 1 Mar 2026 – 13 Mar 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; districts
Started on: 1 Mar; 2026
Heat detections: 47; in a single hotspot: 38 MW
Danger at start: 5; Low · FWI index
Energy released: 308MW; sum of detected power

Play back 14 Mar 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Mar13 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

123456891314

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

The weather it burned in

37°high

47km/h · peak gust

34%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 17 Mar.

This area had burned before

92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 441 ha in 2016, 1,172 ha in 2017, 1,392 ha in 2018, 1,571 ha in 2019, 2,868 ha in 2020, 1,535 ha in 2021, 1,374 ha in 2022, 2,403 ha in 2023, 1,219 ha in 2024, 819 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,156 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Pak Phli where it started

1,950 ha reached on 1 Mar

4.5 %
Mueang Nakhon Nayok

1,496 ha reached on 4 Mar

1.8 %

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)
24 Feb	33.9 °C	57 %	28 km/h	3.5 mm	Low 5
25 Feb	34.7 °C	50 %	22 km/h	1.0 mm	Low 9
26 Feb	34.8 °C	51 %	23 km/h	1.7 mm	Low 8
27 Feb	34.4 °C	51 %	28 km/h	0.8 mm	Moderate 12
28 Feb	34.9 °C	53 %	25 km/h	1.2 mm	Low 11
1 Mar	35.9 °C	45 %	23 km/h	0.7 mm	Moderate 16
2 Mar	35.8 °C	47 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
3 Mar	36.8 °C	36 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
4 Mar	36.7 °C	34 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
5 Mar	34.6 °C	48 %	27 km/h	0.3 mm	High 23
6 Mar	35.4 °C	42 %	35 km/h	0.2 mm	High 26
7 Mar	35.7 °C	40 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
8 Mar	36.5 °C	36 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
9 Mar	36.7 °C	34 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
10 Mar	35.1 °C	41 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
11 Mar	34.8 °C	38 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
12 Mar	33.6 °C	43 %	28 km/h	0.1 mm	High 27
13 Mar	33.9 °C	42 %	41 km/h	0.1 mm	High 33
14 Mar after	34.3 °C	40 %	35 km/h	0.2 mm	High 28
15 Mar after	35.0 °C	39 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
16 Mar after	35.0 °C	38 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
17 Mar after	35.0 °C	48 %	26 km/h	2.5 mm	Moderate 11

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 22 Feb 2026

After · 20 Mar 2026

Before After

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 · Copernicus

On 4 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 88 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 38: 2.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak88 µg/m³

Days over the guideline15 days

PM1089 µg/m³

Optical depth0.70

WHO 15

272812345678910111213141516

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 47Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Thailand ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Pak Phli fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 March 2026 and 13 March 2026: 13 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 3,428 hectares (34.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Pak Phli (1,950 ha, 4.5 %); Mueang Nakhon Nayok (1,496 ha, 1.8 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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.

Where it burned