How long did the Sa Bot fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 January 2026 and 29 January 2026: 9 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 1,592 hectares (15.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Sa Bot (1,371 ha, 4.1 %); Khok Samrong (229 ha, 0.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 33.8 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, 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 · 2026-01-21 → 2026-01-29

Sa Bot fire, 21 January 2026 Sa Bot, Khok Samrong

Out · last detection 29 Jan 2026, 06:35 UTC

The fire started on 21 January 2026 in Sa Bot, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,592 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

Number 504 in Thailand in 2026, of 880.

The power measured by the satellite is low (17.5 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: 1,592ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 9days; 21 Jan 2026 – 29 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; districts
Started on: 21 Jan; 2026
Heat detections: 30; in a single hotspot: 18 MW
Danger at start: 21; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 109MW; sum of detected power

Play back 29 Jan 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Jan29 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

2123242526272829

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

The weather it burned in

34°high

44km/h · peak gust

27%lowest humidity

It had gone 34 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

56% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 128 ha in 2016, 592 ha in 2017, 98 ha in 2018, 572 ha in 2021, 70 ha in 2022, 263 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 893 ha that had burned before.

3 ha Sa Bot fire, January 2025 2,060 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Sa Bot where it started

1,371 ha reached on 17 Jan

4.1 %
Khok Samrong

229 ha

0.3 %

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)
17 Jan	32.7 °C	41 %	17 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 21
18 Jan	33.6 °C	38 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
19 Jan	33.8 °C	35 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
20 Jan	33.8 °C	35 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
21 Jan	33.1 °C	34 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
22 Jan	31.6 °C	33 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
23 Jan	30.4 °C	35 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
24 Jan	30.6 °C	31 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
25 Jan	32.1 °C	27 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
26 Jan	32.0 °C	33 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
27 Jan	32.1 °C	33 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
28 Jan	31.5 °C	33 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
29 Jan	32.2 °C	33 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
30 Jan after	33.4 °C	33 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
31 Jan after	33.9 °C	33 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
1 Feb after	31.8 °C	36 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
2 Feb after	31.2 °C	39 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
3 Feb after	31.7 °C	40 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
4 Feb after	33.1 °C	35 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
5 Feb after	34.6 °C	33 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
6 Feb after	34.6 °C	40 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
7 Feb after	35.4 °C	39 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
8 Feb after	33.2 °C	44 %	37 km/h	0.1 mm	High 29

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 14 Jan 2026

After · 5 Feb 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 31 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 74 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 46: 3.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak74 µg/m³

Days over the guideline9 days

PM1074 µg/m³

Optical depth0.65

WHO 15

192021222324252627282930311

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 · 30Every 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 21 January 2026 and 29 January 2026: 9 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 1,592 hectares (15.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Sa Bot (1,371 ha, 4.1 %); Khok Samrong (229 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 33.8 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, 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.

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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