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Sop Moei fire, 11 March 2018 สบเมย · Sop Moei, Omkoi

Out · last detection 18 Mar 2018, 06:17 UTC

The fire started on 11 March 2018 in Sop Moei, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,063 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 353th largest in Mae Hong Son Province since 2016 (of 387 with a page). Number 79 in Thailand in 2018, of 84.

The power measured by the satellite is low (13.1 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: Omkoi · 2017Sop Moei · 2019Sop Moei · 2026Mae Sariang · 2024

Burnt area
1,063ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
11 Mar 2018 – 18 Mar 2018
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
11 Mar
2018
Heat detections
25
in a single hotspot: 13 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Average daily power
20MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Mar18 Mar
18 Mar 2018

How it evolved, day by day

12 Mar 2018 · 25 MW · 6 15 Mar 2018 · 36 MW · 4 16 Mar 2018 · 19 MW · 8 17 Mar 2018 · 13 MW · 6 18 Mar 2018 · 6 MW · 1
12 Mar 15 Mar 16 Mar 17 Mar 18 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

32°high
40km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 649 ha in 2016, 733 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 874 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.7% of the area of London (11 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

  1. Sop Moei สบเมย where it started
    990 ha reached on 12 Mar
    0.7 %
  2. Omkoi อมก๋อย
    79 ha
    0.0 %

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 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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)
12 Mar 30.7 °C 41 % 38 km/h 0.3 mm High 24
13 Mar 31.4 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
14 Mar 29.6 °C 37 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
15 Mar 31.4 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
16 Mar 32.1 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
17 Mar 31.4 °C 41 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
18 Mar 32.2 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.2 mm High 32
19 Mar after 31.8 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
20 Mar after 32.7 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
21 Mar after 32.8 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
22 Mar after 33.5 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Mar after 29.7 °C 48 % 31 km/h 0.4 mm High 25
24 Mar after 32.0 °C 42 % 28 km/h 0.4 mm High 25
25 Mar after 33.5 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
26 Mar after 34.1 °C 31 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
27 Mar after 32.6 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
28 Mar after 32.0 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Mar 2018
After · 25 Mar 2018

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 · 25Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Thailand ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Sop Moei fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 March 2018 to 18 March 2018 (8 days). The perimeter dates it from 12 March 2018 to 18 March 2018.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,063 hectares (10.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Sop Moei (990 ha, 0.7 %); Omkoi (79 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.2 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 40 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.

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.
  1. Start date: 12 March 2018 → 11 March 2018.

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?

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 12 March 2018 to 18 March 2018. 25 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 2020, 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.