Tha Pla fire, 14 March 2026 ท่าปลา · Tha Pla
The fire started on 14 March 2026 in Tha Pla, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 39 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,700 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 4th largest in Uttaradit Province since 2016 (of 104 with a page). Number 43 in Thailand in 2026, of 689.
The power measured by the satellite is low (16.9 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…
- Burnt area
- 13,700ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 39days
- 14 Mar 2026 – 21 Apr 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 14 Mar
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 396
- in a single hotspot: 17 MW
- Danger at start
- 17
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 39MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.0 mm on 24 Apr.
This area had burned before
68% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7 ha in 2016, 343 ha in 2017, 2,360 ha in 2019, 2,481 ha in 2020, 3,425 ha in 2021, 3,635 ha in 2023, 3,029 ha in 2024, 2,362 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,365 ha that had burned before.
- 1,187 ha Tha Pla fire, March 2021 1,296 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,127 ha Tha Pla fire, March 2025 2,532 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,085 ha Tha Pla fire, April 2023 1,349 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,056 ha Tha Pla fire, March 2020 1,091 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,056 ha Tha Pla fire, April 2024 1,347 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 742 ha Tha Pla fire, March 2021 1,177 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 731 ha Tha Pla fire, April 2024 1,148 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 312 ha Tha Pla fire, March 2021 1,034 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
-
13,784 ha reached on 14 Mar7.8 %
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 2025Inside 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Mar | 33.6 °C | 40 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 15 Mar | 34.7 °C | 38 % | 26 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 16 Mar | 33.7 °C | 43 % | 23 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 17 Mar | 33.8 °C | 43 % | 32 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 18 Mar | 36.6 °C | 31 % | 25 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 22 |
| 19 Mar | 37.2 °C | 32 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 20 Mar | 37.7 °C | 30 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 21 Mar | 37.7 °C | 35 % | 31 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 28 |
| 22 Mar | 37.4 °C | 37 % | 37 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 30 |
| 23 Mar | 38.6 °C | 24 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 24 Mar | 39.1 °C | 25 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 25 Mar | 39.4 °C | 28 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 26 Mar | 39.8 °C | 28 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 27 Mar | 39.4 °C | 30 % | 39 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 37 |
| 28 Mar | 38.9 °C | 32 % | 39 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 38 |
| 29 Mar | 38.7 °C | 32 % | 37 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 38 |
| 30 Mar | 38.5 °C | 30 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 31 Mar | 38.6 °C | 32 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 1 Apr | 39.1 °C | 31 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 2 Apr | 39.8 °C | 29 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 3 Apr | 39.0 °C | 30 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 4 Apr | 37.9 °C | 36 % | 32 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 34 |
| 5 Apr | 38.3 °C | 36 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 6 Apr | 39.1 °C | 33 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 7 Apr | 39.3 °C | 35 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 8 Apr | 40.1 °C | 26 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 9 Apr | 39.8 °C | 24 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 10 Apr | 40.0 °C | 23 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 11 Apr | 39.6 °C | 28 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 12 Apr | 39.3 °C | 26 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 13 Apr | 39.7 °C | 27 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 14 Apr | 40.3 °C | 26 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 15 Apr | 40.7 °C | 24 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 16 Apr | 41.1 °C | 19 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 17 Apr | 40.2 °C | 25 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 18 Apr | 39.7 °C | 31 % | 28 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 40 |
| 19 Apr | 39.2 °C | 32 % | 40 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 42 |
| 20 Apr | 38.9 °C | 35 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 21 Apr | 39.6 °C | 30 % | 37 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 39 |
| 22 Apr after | 39.7 °C | 37 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 23 Apr after | 38.7 °C | 41 % | 36 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 35 |
| 24 Apr after | 38.2 °C | 41 % | 23 km/h | 2.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 19 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 103 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 75: 5.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 396Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 8,797 haTha Pla ท่าปลา24 March 2026 · 16 days · 12 km away
- 11,023 haNa Muen นาหมื่นApril 2026 · 21 days · 20 km away
- 17,257 haTha Pla ท่าปลา18 March 2026 · 37 days · 23 km away
- 13,146 haNam Pat น้ำปาด18 March 2026 · 37 days · 30 km away
- 22,704 haFak Tha ฟากท่าMarch 2026 · 35 days · 34 km away
- 13,219 haNam Pat น้ำปาด1 April 2026 · 23 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Tha Pla fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 March 2026 to 21 April 2026 (39 days). The perimeter dates it from 17 March 2026 to 21 April 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 13,700 hectares (137.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Tha Pla (13,784 ha, 7.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 41.1 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 41 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
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 17 March 2026 → 14 March 2026.
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; 7 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 17 March 2026 to 21 April 2026. 396 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.