Burned area
satellite only4,472ha
Union of 2 GWIS (Copernicus) perimeters: overlapping areas count once.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 27 Feb 2025 – 11 Mar 2025
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
TH · Thailand · –
Sam Ngao fire, 27 February 2025 สามเงา · Sam Ngao
Out · last detection 11 Mar 2025, 18:36 UTC
The fire started on 27 February 2025 in Sam Ngao, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,472 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 19th largest in Tak Province since 2016 (of 266 with a page). Number 10 in Thailand in 2025, of 173.
The power measured by the satellite is low (17.8 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-26matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only13days
27 Feb 2025 to 11 Mar 2025: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 11 Mar 2025, 18:36 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only27 Feb 2025
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 27 Feb 2025
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only130
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 18 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 27 Feb 2025 – 11 Mar 2025
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only138MW
Total radiative power on 6 March 2025; hotspots that day: 15.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 6 Mar 2025
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model15.5FWI · moderate
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 1.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 27 Feb 2025, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model34.9°C · 34% RH
High of 34.9 °C and minimum humidity of 34% on 7 March 2025; gusts of 39 km/h on 1 March 2025.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 27 Feb 2025 – 11 Mar 2025
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logLast day with fire: 10 March 2025 → 11 March 2025.
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
What was saved on 26 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 4,472 ha
- Dates
- 27 Feb 2025 – 11 Mar 2025
- Name
- Sam Ngao
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/sam-ngao-2025-02-2?v=2026-10-26A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire sam-ngao-2025-02-2.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-02-27 | 2 | 1 | 32.9 | 19.9 | 41 | 4.3 | 19.1 | 0 | 15.5 | moderado | 1 |
| 2025-02-28 | 19 | 49 | 33.3 | 19 | 40 | 6.5 | 23.4 | 0 | 18.9 | moderado | 1 |
| 2025-03-01 | 11 | 13 | 32.6 | 19.3 | 40 | 12.3 | 38.9 | 0 | 22.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-03-02 | 16 | 59 | 34.6 | 17 | 26 | 10.7 | 36 | 0 | 28.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-03-03 | 16 | 68 | 34.5 | 17.4 | 32 | 10.1 | 34.6 | 0 | 28.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-03-04 | 20 | 56 | 34 | 17.4 | 32 | 11.1 | 35.3 | 0 | 29.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-03-05 | 14 | 24 | 33.2 | 17.2 | 30 | 11.5 | 36.7 | 0 | 30.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-03-06 | 15 | 138 | 33.9 | 15.2 | 28 | 12.2 | 38.9 | 0 | 31.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-03-07 | 1 | 4 | 34.9 | 16.7 | 34 | 10.9 | 35.6 | 0 | 31.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-03-08 | 5 | 13 | 27.7 | 19 | 62 | 7.1 | 26.3 | 0.7 | 15.5 | moderado | 1 |
| 2025-03-09 | 4 | 9 | 29.6 | 18.3 | 58 | 8.4 | 29.5 | 1.5 | 8.2 | bajo | 1 |
| 2025-03-10 | 6 | 31 | 32.7 | 19.5 | 51 | 7 | 28.4 | 1.3 | 9.8 | bajo | 1 |
| 2025-03-11 | 1 | 1 | 33.1 | 19.5 | 44 | 7.8 | 25.6 | 0.2 | 18.3 | moderado | 1 |
| 2025-03-12 | 0 | 0 | 32.7 | 19 | 40 | 10.3 | 34.2 | 0 | 23.2 | alto | 0 |
| 2025-03-13 | 0 | 0 | 33.7 | 18.9 | 39 | 11.1 | 35.6 | 0 | 25.1 | alto | 0 |
| 2025-03-14 | 0 | 0 | 34.9 | 17.7 | 29 | 8.9 | 29.5 | 0 | 28.8 | alto | 0 |
| 2025-03-15 | 0 | 0 | 35.3 | 17.9 | 38 | 7.3 | 25.2 | 0 | 28 | alto | 0 |
| 2025-03-16 | 0 | 0 | 34.4 | 19.2 | 38 | 9.6 | 31.3 | 0 | 29.9 | alto | 0 |
| 2025-03-17 | 0 | 0 | 35.3 | 18.7 | 37 | 10.2 | 29.9 | 0 | 30.6 | alto | 0 |
| 2025-03-18 | 0 | 0 | 34.6 | 19.1 | 35 | 7.3 | 25.9 | 0 | 28.8 | alto | 0 |
| 2025-03-19 | 0 | 0 | 28.8 | 20.4 | 58 | 8.8 | 31 | 0.4 | 20.4 | moderado | 0 |
| 2025-03-20 | 0 | 0 | 29.9 | 18.9 | 48 | 10.6 | 32.8 | 0 | 21.6 | alto | 0 |
| 2025-03-21 | 0 | 0 | 31.1 | 18 | 44 | 8.5 | 29.2 | 0 | 21.4 | alto | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 4,472ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 13days
- 27 Feb 2025 – 11 Mar 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 27 Feb
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 130
- in a single hotspot: 18 MW
- Danger at start
- 16
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 36MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
27 Feb11 Mar
11 Mar 2025
How it evolved, day by day
27 Feb
2 Mar
6 Mar
11 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
35°high
39km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity
It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 652 ha in 2016, 2,116 ha in 2017, 136 ha in 2018, 1,836 ha in 2019, 1,509 ha in 2020, 1,567 ha in 2021, 867 ha in 2023, 2,798 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,226 ha that had burned before.
- 2,668 ha Sam Ngao fire, March 2024 8,639 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 867 ha Sam Ngao fire, February 2023 1,410 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 679 ha Sam Ngao fire, March 2021 1,967 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 300 ha Sam Ngao fire, March 2017 3,084 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Bangkok boundary: geoBoundaries · OpenStreetMap, Wambacher · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL 1.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
4,495 ha reached on 27 Feb1.6 %
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 2025Built-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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 Feb | 32.9 °C | 41 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 28 Feb | 33.3 °C | 40 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 1 Mar | 32.6 °C | 40 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 2 Mar | 34.6 °C | 26 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 3 Mar | 34.5 °C | 32 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 4 Mar | 34.0 °C | 32 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 5 Mar | 33.2 °C | 30 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 6 Mar | 33.9 °C | 28 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 7 Mar | 34.9 °C | 34 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 8 Mar | 27.7 °C | 62 % | 26 km/h | 0.7 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 9 Mar | 29.6 °C | 58 % | 30 km/h | 1.5 mm | Low 8 |
| 10 Mar | 32.7 °C | 51 % | 28 km/h | 1.3 mm | Low 10 |
| 11 Mar | 33.1 °C | 44 % | 26 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 12 Mar after | 32.7 °C | 40 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 13 Mar after | 33.7 °C | 39 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 14 Mar after | 34.9 °C | 29 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 15 Mar after | 35.3 °C | 38 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 16 Mar after | 34.4 °C | 38 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 17 Mar after | 35.3 °C | 37 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 18 Mar after | 34.6 °C | 35 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 19 Mar after | 28.8 °C | 58 % | 31 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 20 Mar after | 29.9 °C | 48 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 21 Mar after | 31.1 °C | 44 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 21 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 15.5, a minimum humidity of 41% and 1 day without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 39.
FWI at the start
15.5
Minimum humidity
41 %
Days without rain
1
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Sam Ngao fire, 27 February 2025
4,472 ha
13 days
FWI 15.5
Min. humidity 41 %
Sam Ngao fire, March 2018
4,112 ha
11 days
FWI 18.2
Min. humidity 41 %
25 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Mae Chaem fire, April 2018
1,167 ha
4 days
FWI 15.1
Min. humidity 41 %
117 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 7.8 mm on 26 Apr.
Tha Song Yang fire, April 2018
2,321 ha
12 days
FWI 15.2
Min. humidity 42 %
88 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 10.1 mm on 28 Apr.
Sop Moei fire, March 2023
1,253 ha
9 days
FWI 17.8
Min. humidity 41 %
66 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Sam Ngao fire, March 2018
1,649 ha
9 days
FWI 17.2
Min. humidity 43 %
20 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
What happened to them
- 10 days
- median duration
- 1,675 ha
- median area
- 97 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- 2.8 mm
- rain at the end (median; 22 of 39 had it)
It was 2.7 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 13 days, against 10 days.
Only 2 of its 39 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 17 of 39, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.8 mm.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
—first rain
—no rain in ten days
39km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 11 Mar, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 22 of 39, with a median of 2.8 mm.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 20 Feb 2025
After · 18 Mar 2025
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · CopernicusOn 7 March 2025 the air beside the fire reached 62 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 42: 2.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak62 µg/m³
Days over the guideline10 days
PM1064 µg/m³
Optical depth0.82
WHO 15
25 Feb1 Mar5 Mar9 Mar13 Mar
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 · 130Every 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
- 19,796 haLi ลี้23 March 2026 · 33 days · 26 km away
- 21,073 haMae Phrik แม่พริกFebruary 2019 · 37 days · 33 km away
- 18,226 haMae Phrik แม่พริก6 March 2025 · 27 days · 34 km away
- 31,164 haTha Song Yang ท่าสองยาง3 April 2018 · 22 days · 35 km away
- 28,424 haLi ลี้19 March 2026 · 32 days · 38 km away
- 45,160 haMae Phrik แม่พริกMarch 2026 · 37 days · 39 km away
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 27 February 2025 to 11 March 2025 (13 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 February 2025 to 10 March 2025.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,472 hectares (44.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Sam Ngao (4,495 ha, 1.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.9 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 39. Their median duration was 10 days and their median area 1,675 ha; 97 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 2 of its 39 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 17 of 39, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.8 mm.
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
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 10 March 2025 → 11 March 2025.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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
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 27 February 2025 to 10 March 2025. 130 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.
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.