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Phichai fire, 2 December 2021 พิชัย · Phichai

Out · last detection 10 Dec 2021, 07:02 UTC

The fire started on 2 December 2021 in Phichai, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,021 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 102th largest in Uttaradit Province since 2016 (of 104 with a page). Number 179 in Thailand in 2021, of 187.

The power measured by the satellite is low (17.2 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: Si Satchanalai · 2026Thong Saen Khan · 2023Nam Pat · 2026

Burnt area
1,021ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
2 Dec 2021 – 9 Dec 2021
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
2 Dec
2021
Heat detections
38
in a single hotspot: 17 MW
Danger at start
13
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
24MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Dec9 Dec
10 Dec 2021

How it evolved, day by day

2 Dec 2021 · 7 MW · 3 3 Dec 2021 · 7 MW · 2 4 Dec 2021 · 69 MW · 8 6 Dec 2021 · 17 MW · 5 7 Dec 2021 · 58 MW · 12 8 Dec 2021 · 4 MW · 1 9 Dec 2021 · 29 MW · 5 10 Dec 2021 · 4 MW · 1
2 Dec 4 Dec 7 Dec 9 Dec

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
19km/h · peak gust
37%lowest humidity

It had gone 29 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

77% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 440 ha in 2016, 76 ha in 2018, 555 ha in 2019, 583 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 785 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.6% of the area of London (10 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Phichai พิชัย where it started
    1,027 ha
    1.3 %

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)
2 Dec 30.6 °C 44 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
3 Dec 30.3 °C 47 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
4 Dec 29.6 °C 37 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
5 Dec 29.7 °C 38 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
6 Dec 30.1 °C 38 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
7 Dec 29.9 °C 41 % 14 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
8 Dec 30.7 °C 40 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
9 Dec 31.9 °C 48 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
10 Dec after 32.4 °C 50 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
11 Dec after 32.8 °C 47 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
12 Dec after 32.2 °C 40 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
13 Dec after 32.4 °C 41 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
14 Dec after 31.2 °C 48 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
15 Dec after 31.4 °C 45 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
16 Dec after 32.1 °C 43 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
17 Dec after 33.1 °C 42 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
18 Dec after 31.2 °C 45 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
19 Dec after 29.6 °C 43 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Nov 2021
After · 16 Dec 2021

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 · 38Every 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 Phichai fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 December 2021 and 9 December 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 1,021 hectares (10.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Phichai (1,027 ha, 1.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.9 °C, humidity dropped to 37 % and gusts hit 19 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 16, class Moderate.
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.

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. 38 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.