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Pong fire, 12 April 2016 Pong

Out · last detection 19 Apr 2016, 06:06 UTC

The fire started on 12 April 2016 in Pong, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,158 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 100th largest in Phayao Province since 2016 (of 125 with a page). Number 393 in Thailand in 2016, of 527.

Burnt area
1,158ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
12 Apr 2016 – 19 Apr 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
12 Apr
2016
Heat detections
32
in a single hotspot: 51 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
240MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Apr 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Apr19 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

12141516171819

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
42km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 29 Apr.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Pong where it started
    1,165 ha reached on 12 Apr
    0.7 %

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)
12 Apr 37.6 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Apr 36.3 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Apr 37.6 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Apr 37.7 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
16 Apr 37.2 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Apr 37.2 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Apr 36.0 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Apr 35.7 °C 40 % 42 km/h 0.9 mm High 26
20 Apr after 36.5 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
21 Apr after 36.8 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Apr after 35.8 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.4 mm High 37
23 Apr after 36.1 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Apr after 36.2 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Apr after 35.0 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Apr after 36.5 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Apr after 37.1 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Apr after 37.9 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Apr after 33.5 °C 45 % 33 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Apr 2016
After · 26 Apr 2016

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 · 32Every 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 Pong fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 April 2016 and 19 April 2016: 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 1,158 hectares (11.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pong (1,165 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.