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Thoen fire, March 2021 Thoen

Out · last detection 10 Mar 2021, 18:47 UTC

The fire started on 4 March 2021 in Thoen, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,648 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 33th largest in Lampang Province since 2016 (of 202 with a page). Number 55 in Thailand in 2021, of 268.

The power measured by the satellite is low (11.5 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
2,648ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
4 Mar 2021 – 10 Mar 2021
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
4 Mar
2021
Heat detections
93
in a single hotspot: 12 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
308MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Mar 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Mar10 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

45678910

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
32km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

85% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 299 ha in 2016, 1,143 ha in 2017, 1,251 ha in 2018, 265 ha in 2019, 924 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,256 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Thoen where it started
    2,661 ha reached on 4 Mar
    1.5 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

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)
2 Mar 35.1 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
3 Mar 34.4 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
4 Mar 32.6 °C 42 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
5 Mar 36.3 °C 23 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
6 Mar 36.8 °C 16 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
7 Mar 37.1 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Mar 35.6 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Mar 35.5 °C 25 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Mar 35.1 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Mar after 34.4 °C 33 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Mar after 34.3 °C 42 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
13 Mar after 33.7 °C 39 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
14 Mar after 32.9 °C 42 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
15 Mar after 35.5 °C 32 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
16 Mar after 36.2 °C 31 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
17 Mar after 35.8 °C 32 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
18 Mar after 36.4 °C 31 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
19 Mar after 38.0 °C 29 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
20 Mar after 38.6 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Feb 2021
After · 17 Mar 2021

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 · 93Every 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 Thoen fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 March 2021 and 10 March 2021: 7 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,648 hectares (26.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Thoen (2,661 ha, 1.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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

Satellite cross-check

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
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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.

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.