How long did the Ban Tak fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 9 March 2017 to 26 March 2017 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 March 2017 to 25 March 2017.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,886 hectares (78.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Sam Ngao (5,143 ha, 1.9 %); Ban Tak (2,779 ha, 2.7 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 45 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 · 2017-03-09 → 2017-03-26

Ban Tak fire, 9 March 2017 บ้านตาก · Sam Ngao, Ban Tak

Out · last detection 26 Mar 2017, 06:10 UTC

The fire started on 9 March 2017 in Ban Tak, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,886 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 13th largest in Tak Province since 2016 (of 329 with a page). Number 2 in Thailand in 2017, of 155.

The power measured by the satellite is low (22.5 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: Ban Tak · 2026 Sam Ngao · 2023 Mae Ramat · 2026 Mae Phrik · 2025

Burnt area: 7,886ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 18days; 9 Mar 2017 – 26 Mar 2017
Municipalities hit: 2; districts
Started on: 9 Mar; 2017
Heat detections: 271; in a single hotspot: 22 MW
Danger at start: 38; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 55MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Mar26 Mar

Play back 26 Mar 2017

How it evolved, day by day

9 Mar 12 Mar 15 Mar 18 Mar 20 Mar 21 Mar 24 Mar

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

The weather it burned in

39°high

45km/h · peak gust

15%lowest humidity

It had gone 55 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 16.9 mm on 1 Apr.

This area had burned before

18% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,407 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 5% of the area of London (79 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

Sam Ngao สามเงา

5,143 ha reached on 14 Mar

1.9 %
Ban Tak บ้านตาก where it started

2,779 ha reached on 9 Mar

2.7 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2015

Built-up area0.29 ha

Residents≈ 30

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.29 hectares of built-up land and about 30 residents (GHSL 2015, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
9 Mar	34.5 °C	29 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
10 Mar	34.4 °C	35 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
11 Mar	36.8 °C	29 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
12 Mar	36.5 °C	26 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
13 Mar	37.4 °C	18 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
14 Mar	37.1 °C	24 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
15 Mar	38.0 °C	15 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
16 Mar	37.8 °C	18 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
17 Mar	35.9 °C	25 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
18 Mar	36.4 °C	23 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
19 Mar	36.3 °C	23 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
20 Mar	36.9 °C	17 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
21 Mar	35.9 °C	25 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
22 Mar	36.8 °C	21 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
23 Mar	37.7 °C	23 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
24 Mar	38.6 °C	23 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
25 Mar	37.5 °C	24 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
26 Mar	37.6 °C	22 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
27 Mar after	32.3 °C	44 %	44 km/h	0.8 mm	High 25
28 Mar after	35.0 °C	36 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
29 Mar after	36.0 °C	31 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
30 Mar after	36.6 °C	27 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
31 Mar after	38.2 °C	24 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
1 Apr after	32.3 °C	41 %	41 km/h	16.9 mm	Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 2 Mar 2017

After · 2 Apr 2017

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.

Detections table · 271Every 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 Ban Tak fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 9 March 2017 to 26 March 2017 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 March 2017 to 25 March 2017.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,886 hectares (78.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Sam Ngao (5,143 ha, 1.9 %); Ban Tak (2,779 ha, 2.7 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 45 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

26 October 2026 Last day with fire: 25 March 2017 → 26 March 2017.
26 October 2026 Start date: 11 March 2017 → 9 March 2017.

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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 11 March 2017 to 25 March 2017. 271 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.
Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2015, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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