How long did the Sam Ngao fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 13 February 2024 to 16 February 2024 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 February 2024 to 16 February 2024.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,012 hectares (10.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Sam Ngao (828 ha, 0.3 %); Ban Tak (189 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, 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 · 2024-02-13 → 2024-02-16

Sam Ngao fire, 13 February 2024 สามเงา · Sam Ngao, Ban Tak

Out · last detection 16 Feb 2024, 05:59 UTC

The fire started on 13 February 2024 in Sam Ngao, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,012 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 324th largest in Tak Province since 2016 (of 329 with a page). Number 274 in Thailand in 2024, of 277.

The power measured by the satellite is low (4.6 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: Sam Ngao · 2023 Sam Ngao · 2023 Mae Phrik · 2025 Mae Phrik · 2026

Burnt area: 1,012ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 4days; 13 Feb 2024 – 16 Feb 2024
Municipalities hit: 2; districts
Started on: 13 Feb; 2024
Heat detections: 15; in a single hotspot: 5 MW
Danger at start: 19; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 10MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Feb16 Feb

Play back 16 Feb 2024

How it evolved, day by day

13 Feb 14 Feb 15 Feb 16 Feb

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

The weather it burned in

36°high

46km/h · peak gust

28%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 200 ha in 2017, 446 ha in 2019, 215 ha in 2020, 175 ha in 2021, 225 ha in 2022, 440 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 897 ha that had burned before.

172 ha Sam Ngao fire, February 2023 1,645 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 0.6% of the area of London (10 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 where it started

828 ha reached on 14 Feb

0.3 %
Ban Tak บ้านตาก

189 ha reached on 13 Feb

0.2 %

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 2025

Built-up area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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 Feb	35.0 °C	43 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
10 Feb	31.5 °C	56 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
11 Feb	31.4 °C	47 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
12 Feb	32.8 °C	42 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
13 Feb	34.4 °C	36 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
14 Feb	35.6 °C	30 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 21
15 Feb	36.2 °C	28 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
16 Feb	35.6 °C	34 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
17 Feb after	36.6 °C	32 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
18 Feb after	36.2 °C	32 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
19 Feb after	36.5 °C	30 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
20 Feb after	36.5 °C	31 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
21 Feb after	35.6 °C	27 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
22 Feb after	36.0 °C	34 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
23 Feb after	37.4 °C	30 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
24 Feb after	37.8 °C	32 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
25 Feb after	36.3 °C	47 %	29 km/h	0.5 mm	High 24
26 Feb after	36.4 °C	43 %	31 km/h	0.1 mm	High 24

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 6 Feb 2024

After · 23 Feb 2024

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 February 2024 the air beside the fire reached 46 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 28: 1.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak46 µg/m³

Days over the guideline5 days

PM1067 µg/m³

Optical depth0.82

WHO 15

1213141516171819

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 · 15Every 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 Sam Ngao fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 13 February 2024 to 16 February 2024 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 February 2024 to 16 February 2024.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,012 hectares (10.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Sam Ngao (828 ha, 0.3 %); Ban Tak (189 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, 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 · 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: 14 February 2024 → 13 February 2024.

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.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 14 February 2024 to 16 February 2024. 15 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 2025, 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