How long did the Sa Bot fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 January 2026 and 10 January 2026: 6 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 1,013 hectares (10.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Sa Bot (1,019 ha, 3.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.8 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, 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 · 2026-01-05 → 2026-01-10

Sa Bot fire, 5 January 2026 Sa Bot

Out · last detection 9 Jan 2026, 06:09 UTC

The fire started on 5 January 2026 in Sa Bot, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,013 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

Number 867 in Thailand in 2026, of 880.

The power measured by the satellite is low (13.5 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 1,013ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 6days; 5 Jan 2026 – 10 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 5 Jan; 2026
Heat detections: 20; in a single hotspot: 13 MW
Danger at start: 17; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 69MW; sum of detected power

Play back 9 Jan 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Jan10 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

56789

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

54km/h · peak gust

31%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 648 ha in 2016, 581 ha in 2017, 310 ha in 2019, 611 ha in 2020, 213 ha in 2022, 480 ha in 2023, 389 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 948 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Sa Bot where it started

1,019 ha reached on 5 Jan

3.0 %

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)
29 Dec	30.6 °C	38 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
30 Dec	30.9 °C	37 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
31 Dec	31.1 °C	36 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
1 Jan	31.8 °C	36 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
2 Jan	30.6 °C	33 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
3 Jan	29.2 °C	39 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
4 Jan	28.8 °C	40 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
5 Jan	29.9 °C	37 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
6 Jan	29.3 °C	39 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
7 Jan	27.3 °C	39 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
8 Jan	25.9 °C	34 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
9 Jan	26.1 °C	32 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
10 Jan	26.8 °C	31 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
11 Jan after	26.8 °C	34 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
12 Jan after	28.2 °C	34 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
13 Jan after	29.5 °C	31 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
14 Jan after	30.6 °C	37 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
15 Jan after	31.7 °C	35 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
16 Jan after	32.2 °C	39 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
17 Jan after	32.1 °C	41 %	17 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 20
18 Jan after	32.9 °C	38 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 21
19 Jan after	33.1 °C	34 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
20 Jan after	33.2 °C	35 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 29 Dec 2025

After · 17 Jan 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 13 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 39 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak39 µg/m³

Days over the guideline4 days

PM1040 µg/m³

Optical depth0.28

WHO 15

345678910111213

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 · 20Every 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 Sa Bot fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 January 2026 and 10 January 2026: 6 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 1,013 hectares (10.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Sa Bot (1,019 ha, 3.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.8 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, 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?

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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