Wiang Kaen fire, 5 April 2019 เวียงแก่น · Wiang Kaen, Chiang Khong
The fire started on 5 April 2019 in Wiang Kaen, Thailand, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,174 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 66th largest in Chiang Rai Province since 2016 (of 187 with a page). Number 97 in Thailand in 2019, of 385.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Paktha · 2020Phu Sang · 2026
- Burnt area
- 2,174ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 13days
- 5 Apr 2019 – 17 Apr 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 5 Apr
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 87
- in a single hotspot: 33 MW
- Danger at start
- 27
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 31MW
- 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.
This area had burned before
45% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,006 ha in 2016, 221 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 968 ha that had burned before.
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
-
2,060 ha reached on 5 Apr4.2 %
-
Chiang Khong เชียงของ125 ha reached on 8 Apr0.2 %
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 2020Inside the perimeter there were about 0.18 hectares of built-up land and about 30 residents (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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31 Mar | 35.0 °C | 33 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 1 Apr | 35.7 °C | 33 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 2 Apr | 34.5 °C | 34 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 3 Apr | 34.6 °C | 39 % | 35 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 28 |
| 4 Apr | 35.7 °C | 32 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 5 Apr | 34.9 °C | 35 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 6 Apr | 34.0 °C | 34 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 7 Apr | 35.7 °C | 35 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 8 Apr | 36.6 °C | 28 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 9 Apr | 36.1 °C | 32 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 10 Apr | 36.3 °C | 31 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 11 Apr | 36.4 °C | 29 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 12 Apr | 36.8 °C | 33 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 13 Apr | 37.7 °C | 30 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 14 Apr | 37.8 °C | 31 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 15 Apr | 38.5 °C | 27 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 16 Apr | 37.4 °C | 37 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 17 Apr | 36.9 °C | 36 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 18 Apr after | 37.9 °C | 33 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 19 Apr after | 38.2 °C | 31 % | 34 km/h | 0.8 mm | High 33 |
| 20 Apr after | 37.9 °C | 34 % | 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.
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 · 87Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Wiang Kaen fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 5 April 2019 to 17 April 2019 (13 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 April 2019 to 10 April 2019.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,174 hectares (21.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Wiang Kaen (2,060 ha, 4.2 %); Chiang Khong (125 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 10 April 2019 → 17 April 2019.
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.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 5 April 2019 to 10 April 2019. 87 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.
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.