Phop Phra fire, 1 March 2017 Phop Phra
The fire started on 1 March 2017 in Phop Phra, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 31 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,349 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
We are reviewing this page: some of its data look inconsistent (the place, the dates or the area), so treat them with caution.
- Burnt area
- 16,349ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 31days
- 1 Mar 2017 – 31 Mar 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 1 Mar
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 18
- in a single hotspot: 35 MW
- Danger at start
- 20
- Moderate · FWI index
- Energy released
- 195MW
- sum of detected power
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 47 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 1 Apr.
This area had burned before
83% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 16,857 ha in 2016. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 13,568 ha that had burned before.
- 5,555 ha Umphang fire, March 2016 16,730 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,339 ha Phop Phra fire, March 2016 6,333 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,100 ha Phop Phra fire, April 2016 3,940 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 334 ha Umphang fire, April 2016 1,591 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Phop Phra where it started680 ha reached on 13 Mar0.7 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Mar | 33.1 °C | 43 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 2 Mar | 33.7 °C | 37 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 3 Mar | 33.5 °C | 39 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 4 Mar | 32.2 °C | 44 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 5 Mar | 32.8 °C | 43 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 6 Mar | 34.1 °C | 35 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 7 Mar | 33.2 °C | 38 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 8 Mar | 33.6 °C | 39 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 9 Mar | 33.2 °C | 40 % | 40 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 27 |
| 10 Mar | 33.5 °C | 41 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 11 Mar | 34.7 °C | 40 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 12 Mar | 33.2 °C | 45 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 13 Mar | 34.5 °C | 34 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 14 Mar | 35.3 °C | 33 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 15 Mar | 35.7 °C | 26 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 16 Mar | 35.3 °C | 30 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 17 Mar | 33.8 °C | 36 % | 40 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 34 |
| 18 Mar | 34.2 °C | 37 % | 38 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 33 |
| 19 Mar | 34.6 °C | 32 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 20 Mar | 35.0 °C | 26 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 21 Mar | 34.0 °C | 35 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 22 Mar | 35.6 °C | 28 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 23 Mar | 37.2 °C | 32 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 24 Mar | 36.1 °C | 35 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 25 Mar | 35.5 °C | 36 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 26 Mar | 36.2 °C | 33 % | 24 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 31 |
| 27 Mar | 31.9 °C | 56 % | 27 km/h | 5.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 28 Mar | 32.9 °C | 49 % | 21 km/h | 0.9 mm | Low 8 |
| 29 Mar | 34.5 °C | 47 % | 25 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 30 Mar | 34.5 °C | 47 % | 32 km/h | 1.4 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 31 Mar | 34.7 °C | 38 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 1 Apr after | 32.7 °C | 46 % | 19 km/h | 1.6 mm | Low 10 |
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 · 18Every 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 Phop Phra fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 March 2017 and 31 March 2017: 31 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 16,349 hectares (163.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Phop Phra (680 ha, 0.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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
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
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.