How long did the Pong fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 March 2026 to 21 April 2026 (26 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 April 2026 to 21 April 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 15,350 hectares (153.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Pong (14,818 ha, 8.7 %); Chiang Muan (490 ha, 0.7 %); Mueang Nan (115 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 40.0 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.

TH · Thailand · 2026-03-27 → 2026-04-21

Pong fire, 27 March 2026 ปง · Pong, Chiang Muan, Mueang Nan

Out · last detection 21 Apr 2026, 18:31 UTC

The fire started on 27 March 2026 in Pong, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,350 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in Phayao Province since 2016 (of 111 with a page). Number 38 in Thailand in 2026, of 689.

The power measured by the satellite is low (28.4 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: Pong · 2025 Pong · 2019 Pong · 2016 Chiang Muan · 2016

Burnt area: 15,350ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 26days; 27 Mar 2026 – 21 Apr 2026
Municipalities hit: 3; districts
Started on: 27 Mar; 2026
Heat detections: 411; in a single hotspot: 28 MW
Danger at start: 38; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 70MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Mar21 Apr

Play back 21 Apr 2026

How it evolved, day by day

27 Mar 1 Apr 7 Apr 11 Apr 15 Apr 16 Apr 19 Apr

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

The weather it burned in

40°high

44km/h · peak gust

19%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 12.4 mm on 24 Apr.

This area had burned before

83% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,336 ha in 2016, 1,762 ha in 2017, 1,616 ha in 2018, 8,469 ha in 2019, 2,715 ha in 2020, 1,130 ha in 2021, 680 ha in 2022, 4,911 ha in 2023, 1,100 ha in 2024, 5,201 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 12,758 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 9.7% of the area of London (154 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

Pong ปง where it started

14,818 ha reached on 27 Mar

8.7 %
Chiang Muan เชียงม่วน

490 ha reached on 14 Apr

0.7 %
Mueang Nan เมืองน่าน

115 ha reached on 14 Apr

0.1 %

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)
27 Mar	38.3 °C	21 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
28 Mar	38.2 °C	25 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
29 Mar	37.7 °C	26 %	44 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 41
30 Mar	37.9 °C	25 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
31 Mar	38.0 °C	28 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
1 Apr	38.0 °C	31 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
2 Apr	38.5 °C	29 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
3 Apr	38.6 °C	29 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
4 Apr	37.4 °C	33 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
5 Apr	38.1 °C	34 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
6 Apr	38.1 °C	33 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
7 Apr	37.9 °C	36 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
8 Apr	38.6 °C	24 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
9 Apr	38.6 °C	22 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
10 Apr	39.1 °C	22 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
11 Apr	38.4 °C	26 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
12 Apr	38.8 °C	21 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
13 Apr	39.1 °C	28 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
14 Apr	39.6 °C	25 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
15 Apr	40.0 °C	20 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
16 Apr	39.6 °C	19 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
17 Apr	38.4 °C	30 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
18 Apr	38.0 °C	35 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
19 Apr	38.7 °C	25 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
20 Apr	36.9 °C	37 %	37 km/h	0.1 mm	High 36
21 Apr	38.5 °C	31 %	34 km/h	0.1 mm	High 35
22 Apr after	38.9 °C	36 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
23 Apr after	36.5 °C	39 %	34 km/h	0.7 mm	High 27
24 Apr after	35.6 °C	50 %	32 km/h	12.4 mm	Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 20 Mar 2026

After · 28 Apr 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 17 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 246 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 181: 12 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak246 µg/m³

Days over the guideline25 days

PM10282 µg/m³

Optical depth2.38

WHO 15

31123456789101112131415161718192021222324

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 · 411Every 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 Pong fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 March 2026 to 21 April 2026 (26 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 April 2026 to 21 April 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 15,350 hectares (153.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Pong (14,818 ha, 8.7 %); Chiang Muan (490 ha, 0.7 %); Mueang Nan (115 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 40.0 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

26 October 2026 Start date: 2 April 2026 → 27 March 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 5 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 2 April 2026 to 21 April 2026. 411 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.

Where it burned