How long did the Wang Nuea fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 March 2026 and 30 March 2026: 9 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 2,604 hectares (26.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Wang Nuea (2,619 ha, 2.8 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 43 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.

TH · Thailand · 2026-03-22 → 2026-03-30

Wang Nuea fire, 22 March 2026 วังเหนือ · Wang Nuea

Out · last detection 30 Mar 2026, 18:42 UTC

The fire started on 22 March 2026 in Wang Nuea, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,604 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 34th largest in Lampang Province since 2016 (of 202 with a page). Number 232 in Thailand in 2026, of 804.

The power measured by the satellite is low (7.1 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: 2,604ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 9days; 22 Mar 2026 – 30 Mar 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 22 Mar; 2026
Heat detections: 51; in a single hotspot: 7 MW
Danger at start: 21; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 15MW; detected power per day, on average

Play back 30 Mar 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Mar30 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

22 Mar 23 Mar 24 Mar 26 Mar 28 Mar 30 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

36°high

43km/h · peak gust

24%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

46% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 443 ha in 2017, 577 ha in 2019, 158 ha in 2023, 240 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,204 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Wang Nuea วังเหนือ where it started

2,619 ha reached on 22 Mar

2.8 %

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)
22 Mar	34.4 °C	34 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
23 Mar	34.8 °C	30 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 21
24 Mar	35.4 °C	25 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
25 Mar	35.2 °C	24 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
26 Mar	35.8 °C	27 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
27 Mar	36.0 °C	27 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
28 Mar	36.4 °C	26 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
29 Mar	36.1 °C	26 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
30 Mar	36.0 °C	30 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
31 Mar after	36.6 °C	32 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
1 Apr after	36.1 °C	36 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
2 Apr after	36.8 °C	33 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
3 Apr after	37.4 °C	32 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
4 Apr after	35.9 °C	38 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
5 Apr after	37.0 °C	38 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
6 Apr after	36.1 °C	39 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
7 Apr after	36.4 °C	38 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
8 Apr after	36.9 °C	30 %	34 km/h	0.1 mm	High 32
9 Apr after	36.2 °C	33 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 15 Mar 2026

After · 6 Apr 2026

Before After

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 · Copernicus

On 30 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 85 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 68: 4.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak85 µg/m³

Days over the guideline14 days

PM10113 µg/m³

Optical depth1.32

WHO 15

20212223242526272829303112

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 · 51Every 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

All fires in Thailand ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Wang Nuea fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 March 2026 and 30 March 2026: 9 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 2,604 hectares (26.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Wang Nuea (2,619 ha, 2.8 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 43 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

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned