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TH · Thailand · –

Thung Saliam fire, February 2019 ทุ่งเสลี่ยม · Thung Saliam, Si Satchanalai

Out · last detection 14 Mar 2019, 06:48 UTC

The fire started on 19 February 2019 in Thung Saliam, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,802 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 2th largest in Sukhothai Province since 2016 (of 39 with a page). Number 36 in Thailand in 2019, of 385.

The power measured by the satellite is low (20.2 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
3,802ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
24days
19 Feb 2019 – 14 Mar 2019
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
19 Feb
2019
Heat detections
153
in a single hotspot: 20 MW
Danger at start
20
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
26MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Feb14 Mar
14 Mar 2019

How it evolved, day by day

19 Feb 2019 · 5 MW · 1 20 Feb 2019 · 2 MW · 1 21 Feb 2019 · 13 MW · 5 22 Feb 2019 · 19 MW · 8 23 Feb 2019 · 10 MW · 4 24 Feb 2019 · 3 MW · 1 26 Feb 2019 · 2 MW · 1 27 Feb 2019 · 3 MW · 2 28 Feb 2019 · 9 MW · 5 1 Mar 2019 · 2 MW · 1 2 Mar 2019 · 12 MW · 4 3 Mar 2019 · 48 MW · 15 4 Mar 2019 · 123 MW · 32 5 Mar 2019 · 99 MW · 26 6 Mar 2019 · 27 MW · 11 7 Mar 2019 · 43 MW · 7 8 Mar 2019 · 69 MW · 14 9 Mar 2019 · 3 MW · 1 10 Mar 2019 · 14 MW · 6 11 Mar 2019 · 31 MW · 7 14 Mar 2019 · 9 MW · 1
19 Feb 24 Feb 4 Mar 14 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

37°high
38km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

51% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,414 ha in 2016, 800 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,936 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.4% of the area of London (38 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. Thung Saliam ทุ่งเสลี่ยม where it started
    3,824 ha reached on 19 Feb
    7.1 %
  2. Si Satchanalai ศรีสัชนาลัย
    1 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 area0.23 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.23 hectares of 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)
19 Feb 34.1 °C 32 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
20 Feb 35.1 °C 31 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
21 Feb 35.3 °C 33 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
22 Feb 35.9 °C 26 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
23 Feb 36.1 °C 30 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
24 Feb 36.0 °C 26 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
25 Feb 35.5 °C 34 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
26 Feb 34.7 °C 36 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
27 Feb 35.0 °C 36 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
28 Feb 34.9 °C 38 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
1 Mar 36.5 °C 31 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
2 Mar 36.6 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
3 Mar 36.3 °C 26 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
4 Mar 35.8 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Mar 35.8 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Mar 36.1 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Mar 36.2 °C 31 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
8 Mar 36.3 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Mar 36.1 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
10 Mar 35.8 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
11 Mar 36.1 °C 19 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 Mar 35.9 °C 27 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
13 Mar 35.9 °C 31 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Mar 35.9 °C 35 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Mar after 35.9 °C 33 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
16 Mar after 36.7 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Mar after 36.7 °C 36 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Mar after 36.7 °C 34 % 25 km/h 0.3 mm High 32
19 Mar after 35.8 °C 38 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
20 Mar after 37.6 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
21 Mar after 38.1 °C 23 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Mar after 37.9 °C 26 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Mar after 37.6 °C 29 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Mar after 37.6 °C 29 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 20.1, a minimum humidity of 32% and 2 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 63.

FWI at the start 20.1
Minimum humidity 32 %
Days without rain 2
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Sam Ngao fire, February 2021
2,642 ha 18 days FWI 22.1 Min. humidity 32 % 71 km away, in 2021

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

8 days
median duration
1,964 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.6 mm
rain at the end (median; 34 of 63 had it)

It was 1.9 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 24 days, against 8 days.

Only 8 of its 63 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 29 of 63, 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 2.6 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
38km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 14 Mar, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 34 of 63, with a median of 2.6 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.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Feb 2019
After · 21 Mar 2019

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 · 153Every 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 Thung Saliam fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 19 February 2019 to 14 March 2019 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 26 February 2019 to 8 March 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,802 hectares (38.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Thung Saliam (3,824 ha, 7.1 %); Si Satchanalai (1 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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: 63. Their median duration was 8 days and their median area 1,964 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 8 of its 63 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 29 of 63, 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 2.6 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 8 March 2019 → 14 March 2019.
  2. Start date: 26 February 2019 → 19 February 2019.

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
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 26 February 2019 to 8 March 2019. 153 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.