How long did the Wang Nuea fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 March 2026 to 12 April 2026 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 28 March 2026 to 5 April 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,717 hectares (37.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Mueang Pan (1,714 ha, 1.7 %); Wang Nuea (1,193 ha, 1.3 %); Wiang Pa Pao (831 ha, 0.7 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 46 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.

TH · Thailand · 2026-03-28 → 2026-04-12

Wang Nuea fire, 28 March 2026 วังเหนือ · Mueang Pan, Wang Nuea, Wiang Pa Pao

Out · last detection 13 Apr 2026, 19:21 UTC

The fire started on 28 March 2026 in Wang Nuea, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,717 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 20th largest in Lampang Province since 2016 (of 216 with a page). Number 156 in Thailand in 2026, of 689.

The power measured by the satellite is low (5.9 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…

Suggestions: Wiang Pa Pao · 2019 Chae Hom · 2026 Wiang Pa Pao · 2026 Wiang Pa Pao · 2020

Burnt area: 3,717ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 16days; 28 Mar 2026 – 12 Apr 2026
Municipalities hit: 3; districts
Started on: 28 Mar; 2026
Heat detections: 96; in a single hotspot: 6 MW
Danger at start: 34; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 15MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Mar12 Apr

Play back 13 Apr 2026

How it evolved, day by day

28 Mar 29 Mar 30 Mar 1 Apr 3 Apr 8 Apr 10 Apr 12 Apr

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

46km/h · peak gust

23%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

67% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,399 ha in 2016, 414 ha in 2019, 1,352 ha in 2020, 274 ha in 2021, 85 ha in 2022, 852 ha in 2023, 310 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,506 ha that had burned before.

4 ha Wiang Pa Pao fire, April 2019 1,078 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 2.3% of the area of London (37 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

Mueang Pan เมืองปาน

1,714 ha reached on 28 Mar

1.7 %
Wang Nuea วังเหนือ where it started

1,193 ha reached on 28 Mar

1.3 %
Wiang Pa Pao เวียงป่าเป้า

831 ha reached on 28 Mar

0.7 %

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 2025

Built-up area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside 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)
28 Mar	36.5 °C	24 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
29 Mar	36.2 °C	23 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
30 Mar	36.1 °C	26 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
31 Mar	36.6 °C	28 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
1 Apr	36.4 °C	31 %	32 km/h	0.2 mm	High 33
2 Apr	37.0 °C	28 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
3 Apr	37.3 °C	27 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
4 Apr	36.0 °C	33 %	32 km/h	0.1 mm	High 33
5 Apr	37.2 °C	33 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
6 Apr	36.6 °C	33 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
7 Apr	36.7 °C	32 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
8 Apr	37.5 °C	23 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
9 Apr	36.6 °C	24 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
10 Apr	37.4 °C	24 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
11 Apr	36.7 °C	24 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
12 Apr	37.2 °C	21 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
13 Apr after	37.6 °C	27 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
14 Apr after	37.7 °C	26 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
15 Apr after	38.4 °C	19 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 21 Mar 2026

After · 19 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 5 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 107 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 77: 5.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak107 µg/m³

Days over the guideline14 days

PM10122 µg/m³

Optical depth1.79

WHO 15

26272829303112345678

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 · 96Every 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?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 March 2026 to 12 April 2026 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 28 March 2026 to 5 April 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,717 hectares (37.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Mueang Pan (1,714 ha, 1.7 %); Wang Nuea (1,193 ha, 1.3 %); Wiang Pa Pao (831 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 46 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

26 October 2026 Last day with fire: 5 April 2026 → 12 April 2026.

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?

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

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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 28 March 2026 to 5 April 2026. 96 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.

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.

Where it burned