The agribusiness owners who profit from the burning do not only have influence, they have well known names, and addresses not in the north.

Whereas CM this year has the worst smog ever, in Bangkok it's the opposite:

Even when it was still raining, the Bangkok Post complained daily about bad air. And then, for the first time since it started 8 or 9 years ago, we had basically no smog in Bangkok.

(Friends in Issarn tell me sugar cane burning has been stopped)

5 hours ago, atpeace said:

I'm hearing this type of report often. Quite possibly it is just my area. My post on the first page stating how surprising good the polution levels have been got loads of hate :)

It is terrible across the river but like I mentioned before, it is surprising how little impact that has on most days. When the wind blows directly at us from Laos, the AQI increases quickly but even then rarely crosses 100. Now if someone has an active charcoal pit in the village, it regularly will blow past 150 and even 200. This is extremely hard for me because it can last weeks to months.

Burning leaves also is a huge contributor. I still haven't got a good answer why this is done but up to a couple years ago most did it out of habit. It was a form of good housekeeping I think. Ask them why and you would get a shrug I assume.

We have great leadership at the village level but a his tenure is almost up and it takes guts to stand up to the charcoal pit guys. I drove by a home out in the sticks yesterday with a charcoal pit 5 meters from the homes open front door. The whole village looked like it was just bombed. All the kids were sitting inside watching TV like nothing was wrong. How they could even see the screen was beyond me.

You still haven't answered my question and said where you are on the Mekong?

44 minutes ago, SunsetT said:

You still haven't answered my question and said where you are on the Mekong?

and I won't be :) I live in a small town a couple hours south of you.

2 hours ago, Hish said:

The agribusiness owners who profit from the burning do not only have influence, they have well known names, and addresses not in the north.

Whereas CM this year has the worst smog ever, in Bangkok it's the opposite:

Even when it was still raining, the Bangkok Post complained daily about bad air. And then, for the first time since it started 8 or 9 years ago, we had basically no smog in Bangkok.

(Friends in Issarn tell me sugar cane burning has been stopped)

Air pollution in Bangkok was extremely high in mid-January 2026, with the severe conditions continuing through February and March. Schools were closed and work-from-home advised on several occasions due to PM2.5 levels exceeding safe limits. Bangkok doesn't have the same geographical "air-trap" problems of CM, but it has severe traffic and industrial pollution that can build up very quickly without any wind to disperse it.often triggered by a combination of traffic, industrial emissions, and seasonal crop burning. Although rain can reduce pollution, it is wind that disperses it most effectively.

54 minutes ago, atpeace said:

and I won't be :) I live in a small town a couple hours south of you.

1 hour ago, SunsetT said:

You still haven't answered my question and said where you are on the Mekong?

Wind disperses air pollution – it stays when the air is still or cyclic.....wind is a highly effective, natural mechanism for reducing local air pollution concentrations by dispersing and diluting pollutants, often reducing PM2.5 levels by as much as 66%

20 hours ago, john smith said:

Are the fires burning in the Chiangmai areas caused by carelessness such as bottles left around or by deliberate clearing of jungle areas to prepare for rainy season crop planting or possibly by heat lightening? Looking at a satellite map of " hot spots" there are an amazing number of them in the North. Here in Prachuap I frequently see small roadside fires outside of town. They have obviously been started by local farmers as they are in fields that will be growing crops when the Monsoon arrives.

Up to 90% of forest fires are man-made – part of slash-and-burn farming methods. As it is inside the forests, it is very difficult to prevent, but anyone driving through the forests and hills of Northern Thailand will see the patchwork of slash and burn all over the forests. Recently with more modern machinery, this has moved from traditional farming and expanded into more profitable enterprises.

Also, don't forget the highly profitable business of mushroom collecting (hed thob) – these fetch a good price. In order to make the harvest easier, the undergrowth is burnt away to make collection easier – they appear after the first rains. You'll see stalls all along the road selling them. These puffballs are worth up to 800 baht a kg.

Also, the mainstream farmers still burn off biomass after harvesting – crops include rice, maize and sugarcane. Although illegal if started at night, there's not much the police can do – they probably have a share in the farms anyway.

THe burning season is embedded in Thai culture – when things dry out, it's time to burn everything from crops to domestic waste. Unfortunately, this burning frequently gets out of hand, especially after a particularly dry, dry season

Het Thob - https://i.redd.it/anyone-know-what-these-mushrooms-are-my-freind-says-they-v0-zqix4u1fpq3d1.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b0a613fbe39a0c444f4f074369e3682517c0cd18

17 hours ago, atpeace said:

and I won't be :) I live in a small town a couple hours south of you.

Must be Mukdahan area then. That's good enough. I'm not asking for your f e k k in address.

16 hours ago, kwilco said:

Wind disperses air pollution – it stays when the air is still or cyclic.....wind is a highly effective, natural mechanism for reducing local air pollution concentrations by dispersing and diluting pollutants, often reducing PM2.5 levels by as much as 66%

Not sure about that because there's nearly always a wind blowing on the Mekong where I live, but the air pollution is still bad. The river and the mountains in Laos create the prevailing easterly wind which brings the pollution from Laos rather than dispersing it.

22 minutes ago, SunsetT said:

Not sure about that because there's nearly always a wind blowing on the Mekong where I live, but the air pollution is still bad. The river and the mountains in Laos create the prevailing easterly wind which brings the pollution from Laos rather than dispersing it.

That's true.

Wind is a mixed blessing here in the CM area.

Overall, I'd say it's a good thing as it blows away the smoke haze that is locally produced, but there are times when it blows in polluted air from elsewhere.

It all depends on which way the wind blows and where the fires are located.

14 minutes ago, TooPoopedToPop said:

It all depends on which way the wind blows and where the fires are located.

And also where exactly in the CM are that a person is located in!

36 minutes ago, TooPoopedToPop said:

That's true.

Wind is a mixed blessing here in the CM area.

Overall, I'd say it's a good thing as it blows away the smoke haze that is locally produced, but there are times when it blows in polluted air from elsewhere.

It all depends on which way the wind blows and where the fires are located.

1 hour ago, SunsetT said:

Not sure about that because there's nearly always a wind blowing on the Mekong where I live, but the air pollution is still bad. The river and the mountains in Laos create the prevailing easterly wind which brings the pollution from Laos rather than dispersing it.

SunseT and Toopooped to Pop

 

You’re both focusing on anecdote (“there’s always wind where I am” / “it depends which way the wind blows”) rather than the actual meteorology driving the problem.

In northern Thailand—especially around Chiang Mai—the key issue isn’t just whether there is wind, but how the local system behaves. The region sits in a mountainous basin, so you get a “bowl effect” where air is physically constrained. On top of that, temperature inversions act like a lid, trapping polluted air close to the ground and preventing vertical dispersion.

So even if you feel a breeze locally, it doesn’t mean pollutants are being cleared—often they’re just being circulated within the basin or transported in from Laos/Myanmar and then trapped. During the dry season, low overall wind speeds and stagnant conditions dominate, which is why pollution builds up day after day.

In short: wind direction matters, but it’s only one piece of a much bigger system. The combination of inversions + basin topography + seasonal stagnation is what really drives the severe pollution—not isolated observations of wind at a single location.

Th Southwest monsoon brings both a change in wind direction and rain – this usually starts at the end of April or in May.

4 hours ago, SunsetT said:

Must be Mukdahan area then. That's good enough. I'm not asking for your f e k k in address.

Don't get angry and I'm sorry I upset you. A couple have already figured out who I am because I'm a little different than other posters. Not better - just different. For example, If was a a 7 foot albino living in Mukhadan, many nut jobs would know my exact location. Again, sorry I upset you :)

a person's location does not alter the truth about the air quality in Thailand

9 hours ago, kwilco said:

a person's location does not alter the truth about the air quality in Thailand

It is 5 AQi this morning where I live and many of the areas within 50 kilometers. That can change for days though if a few houses started burning trash or their weird preoccupation with burning leaves. It is mostly local once you get out of the cities. Some blame it on the wind blowing in pollution but not the case in most instances. THe wind blowing pollution in in disperses pollution where you live and is a net positive.

6 hours ago, atpeace said:

It is 5 AQi this morning where I live and many of the areas within 50 kilometers. That can change for days though if a few houses started burning trash or their weird preoccupation with burning leaves. It is mostly local once you get out of the cities. Some blame it on the wind blowing in pollution but not the case in most instances. THe wind blowing pollution in in disperses pollution where you live and is a net positive.

The burning of domestic rubbish is again a national tradition; as I said before, if it's wet, you can't burn it – rubbish is built up over the year and once dried out at the end of the cool, dry season, it is traditionally burnt. This seems to be a tradition stemming from archaic slash-and-burn practices, although composting is very effective in the tropics. The primary reason many people burn leaves and agricultural waste in Thailand is convenience and cost, rather than an inability to compost, which is a pity.

During the burning season pollution builds up, but the concentration of PM2.5 particles is not necessarily from your next-door neighbour's bonfire; it is an accumulation of biomass burning over a wide region that gets trapped. Polluted air gets trapped near the ground primarily through temperature inversions, where a layer of warm air sits over cold, dense air, acting as a "lid" that prevents vertical mixing. This trapping is worsened by geographic features like valleys, low wind speeds, and urban structures that prevent pollutants from dispersing, causing smog to build up. In May the change to the southwest monsoon brings a change in the prevailing winds and ends a lot of the temperature inversions and also brings rain.

16 minutes ago, kwilco said:

The burning of domestic rubbish is again a national tradition; as I said before, if it's wet, you can't burn it – rubbish is built up over the year and once dried out at the end of the cool, dry season, it is traditionally burnt. This seems to be a tradition stemming from archaic slash-and-burn practices, although composting is very effective in the tropics. The primary reason many people burn leaves and agricultural waste in Thailand is convenience and cost, rather than an inability to compost, which is a pity.

During the burning season pollution builds up, but the concentration of PM2.5 particles is not necessarily from your next-door neighbour's bonfire; it is an accumulation of biomass burning over a wide region that gets trapped. Polluted air gets trapped near the ground primarily through temperature inversions, where a layer of warm air sits over cold, dense air, acting as a "lid" that prevents vertical mixing. This trapping is worsened by geographic features like valleys, low wind speeds, and urban structures that prevent pollutants from dispersing, causing smog to build up. In May the change to the southwest monsoon brings a change in the prevailing winds and ends a lot of the temperature inversions and also brings rain.

But couldn't they just let the leaves sit where they are. I don't find them ugly. At worse sweep into the corner of the property. The rainy season and time will turn them into something similar dirt before the next season. maybe that is an oversimplification. It is such a nasty habit.

As for smog. I get what your saying but isn't my experience living in rural Thailand. If nobody is burning within 2 kilometers of the places I have lived, we never have bad pollution. The problem is that someone ( usually half the homes )is always burning something regularly throughout the day within two kilometers and pollutants build up over weeks. Inversion makes it much worse and I no longer live in an area that that will be a factor. Left Chiang Mai a decade ago because of the mess inversion caused. Pollution was terrible year around but easily avoided most the year by getting out of the city.

They are burning 5k across the river now but little impact. Also a few of the villages 5k aways are heavily dependant on charcoal. Pollution there is deadly. Minimal impact though here.

Bangkok parks are not large but the pollution in the center which is usually around kilometer from the roads is 43% better in many cases. Nobody really lives in Ubon compared to all the open space. When you fly over Ubon it looks almost void of civilization. So you can multiple the tiny park example I used in bangkok x10, 20...

Mango rains moving in from the north, with a soft rumble of thunder. Not enough to clean it out, but it is a start. It looks like most of the CM valley will get a shower, some places more than that.

NASA's Image of the Day, showing the smoke over Northern Thailand.

https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/smoke-shrouds-northern-thailand/

10 hours ago, atpeace said:

But couldn't they just let the leaves sit where they are. I don't find them ugly. At worse sweep into the corner of the property. The rainy season and time will turn them into something similar dirt before the next season. maybe that is an oversimplification. It is such a nasty habit.

As for smog. I get what your saying but isn't my experience living in rural Thailand. If nobody is burning within 2 kilometers of the places I have lived, we never have bad pollution. The problem is that someone ( usually half the homes )is always burning something regularly throughout the day within two kilometers and pollutants build up over weeks. Inversion makes it much worse and I no longer live in an area that that will be a factor. Left Chiang Mai a decade ago because of the mess inversion caused. Pollution was terrible year around but easily avoided most the year by getting out of the city.

They are burning 5k across the river now but little impact. Also a few of the villages 5k aways are heavily dependant on charcoal. Pollution there is deadly. Minimal impact though here.

Bangkok parks are not large but the pollution in the center which is usually around kilometer from the roads is 43% better in many cases. Nobody really lives in Ubon compared to all the open space. When you fly over Ubon it looks almost void of civilization. So you can multiple the tiny park example I used in bangkok x10, 20...

You’re relying on local observation, but air pollution doesn’t work on a 2 km radius.

PM2.5 is microscopic and accumulates over large areas, often drifting long distances before settling — which is exactly why places like Chiang Mai get hit hardest. You might not “see” it locally, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

You’ve actually made the point yourself: constant small-scale burning adds up. Multiply that across entire regions, then add inversion and basin geography, and pollution builds to harmful levels.

So “it seems fine here” isn’t really evidence — AQI data across northern Thailand consistently shows otherwise, especially during burning season.

On 4/18/2026 at 3:58 AM, CMHomeboy78 said:

No, the burning season hasn't been "extended".

Wildfires in the mountains are causing a public health crisis with toxic levels of air pollution.

Efforts to control and contain the fires are a manifest failure.

The gov't isn't up to the task, so no relief can be expected until the monsoon breaks sometime next month.

What can the government do?

6 hours ago, kwilco said:

You’re relying on local observation, but air pollution doesn’t work on a 2 km radius.

PM2.5 is microscopic and accumulates over large areas, often drifting long distances before settling — which is exactly why places like Chiang Mai get hit hardest. You might not “see” it locally, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

You’ve actually made the point yourself: constant small-scale burning adds up. Multiply that across entire regions, then add inversion and basin geography, and pollution builds to harmful levels.

So “it seems fine here” isn’t really evidence — AQI data across northern Thailand consistently shows otherwise, especially during burning season.

Local air issues is exactly why it is terrible in Chiang Mai. Think it through. It isn't coming from outside Chiang Mai. It is coming from within the city and the surrounding hills within 5k. It is local almost 100%. Stop the burning within the city and even 5k from the city and you would have good air quality on many days. The inversion just keeps the bad LOCAl air where it is at.

Cleanup the local air through grass root education and incentives and much better air in most areas and definately in Chiang Mai. Doing it is nearly impossible at this point. THe park service burns leaves around the walkways or it did a few years ago. Couldn't walk for weeks and they did this during the worst pollution days.

You can have terrible air in Bangkok but in on their tiny parks it is 40% better. Why? Because they are not burning or driving in the park...

8 hours ago, atpeace said:

Local air issues is exactly why it is terrible in Chiang Mai. Think it through. It isn't coming from outside Chiang Mai. It is coming from within the city and the surrounding hills within 5k. It is local almost 100%. Stop the burning within the city and even 5k from the city and you would have good air quality on many days. The inversion just keeps the bad LOCAl air where it is at.

Cleanup the local air through grass root education and incentives and much better air in most areas and definately in Chiang Mai. Doing it is nearly impossible at this point. THe park service burns leaves around the walkways or it did a few years ago. Couldn't walk for weeks and they did this during the worst pollution days.

You can have terrible air in Bangkok but in on their tiny parks it is 40% better. Why? Because they are not burning or driving in the park...

No — this is so wrong on multiple levels.

First, the idea that Chiang Mai’s pollution is “almost 100% local within 5 km” is completely false. PM2.5 travels long distances — across provinces and even across borders — and this is well documented. Pollution doesn’t politely stay where it’s produced. Chiang Mai’s problem is precisely that it sits in a basin that draws in and traps pollution from across a huge region, not just the city and a few nearby hills.

Second, reducing this to “just stop local burning and the problem is solved” ignores reality. There have already been burn bans, subsidies, and incentives for years — and they’ve had limited impact because the drivers are economic and regional. You’re dealing with large-scale agricultural lobbies and systems as well as widespread forest burning, much of it in remote or unregulated areas. This isn’t something that gets fixed with a bit of “grassroots education.” Most people wouldn’t recognise areas of slash and burn in the national parks if it was right in front of them.

Third, the constant focus on leaves and small local fires misses the scale entirely. Yes, local burning contributes — no one is denying that — but it is not the primary driver of the severe haze events.

And the Bangkok park comparison doesn’t prove what you think it does. Of course air is cleaner in a small green space away from traffic — that’s basic micro-environment variation. It says nothing about regional PM2.5 loading, which is what defines the burning season in the north.

You’re trying to reduce a complex, regional atmospheric problem to a few nearby fires and personal observation. That’s not how air pollution works — and it’s exactly why this issue keeps getting misunderstood.

On 4/22/2026 at 2:20 PM, atpeace said:

Don't get angry and I'm sorry I upset you. A couple have already figured out who I am because I'm a little different than other posters. Not better - just different. For example, If was a a 7 foot albino living in Mukhadan, many nut jobs would know my exact location. Again, sorry I upset you :)

Not angry or upset. Just mildly irritated.

I think I've seen a 7 ft albino shopping in NKP a couple of times.

2 hours ago, SunsetT said:

Not angry or upset. Just mildly irritated.

I think I've seen a 7 ft albino shopping in NKP a couple of times.

Good, nice to know you have a sense of humor. Thanks

3 hours ago, kwilco said:

No — this is so wrong on multiple levels.

First, the idea that Chiang Mai’s pollution is “almost 100% local within 5 km” is completely false. PM2.5 travels long distances — across provinces and even across borders — and this is well documented. Pollution doesn’t politely stay where it’s produced. Chiang Mai’s problem is precisely that it sits in a basin that draws in and traps pollution from across a huge region, not just the city and a few nearby hills.

Second, reducing this to “just stop local burning and the problem is solved” ignores reality. There have already been burn bans, subsidies, and incentives for years — and they’ve had limited impact because the drivers are economic and regional. You’re dealing with large-scale agricultural lobbies and systems as well as widespread forest burning, much of it in remote or unregulated areas. This isn’t something that gets fixed with a bit of “grassroots education.” Most people wouldn’t recognise areas of slash and burn in the national parks if it was right in front of them.

Third, the constant focus on leaves and small local fires misses the scale entirely. Yes, local burning contributes — no one is denying that — but it is not the primary driver of the severe haze events.

And the Bangkok park comparison doesn’t prove what you think it does. Of course air is cleaner in a small green space away from traffic — that’s basic micro-environment variation. It says nothing about regional PM2.5 loading, which is what defines the burning season in the north.

You’re trying to reduce a complex, regional atmospheric problem to a few nearby fires and personal observation. That’s not how air pollution works — and it’s exactly why this issue keeps getting misunderstood.

Yep, the severe haze caused by local pollution. Not always but most of it. Fix the air locally and air pollution drops drastically in most areas outside cities which was my original point. It would apply to Chiang Mai but definitely more complicated..

We aren't going to agree. I'm done and I respect your opinions but this is going nowhere :)

1 minute ago, atpeace said:

Yep, the severe haze caused by local pollution. Not always but most of it. Fix the air locally and air pollution drops drastically in most areas outside cities which was my original point. It would apply to Chiang Mai but definitely more complicated..

We aren't going to agree. I'm done and I respect your opinions but this is going nowhere :)

Sorry, you're talking nonsense and have got it wrong; no one can respect your opinion because it isn't based on evidence, logic or reason. It's nothing to do with what I say; I'm just reporting the science and the evidence – you are just confusing association and causation by your own inability to make sense of what you see – it's to do with the evidence and science. In short, you are just plain WRONG!

1 minute ago, kwilco said:

Sorry, you're talking nonsense and have got it wrong; no one can respect your opinion because it isn't based on evidence, logic or reason. It's nothing to do with what I say – it's to do with the evidence and science. In short, you are just plain WRONG!

OK:)

On 4/20/2026 at 9:56 PM, kwilco said:

If living in Chiang Mai has convinced you that the air quality is "fine", it’s clear the particulate matter has already started affecting your cognitive functions.

So, who made you the “gatekeeper”? To suggest that one must be a resident to interpret data from monitoring stations is a special kind of intellectual laziness. I don’t need to live in a furnace to know it’s hot, and I don't need to live in CM to see the IQAir rankings or read the health advisories. You claim the hills are 'worse', yet central CM frequently tops the list for the most polluted air on Earth.

Just because someone lives there doesn't mean they are checking the levels. Often, locals become "desensitised" to the haze, which is a psychological phenomenon, not a scientific fact.

Perhaps spend less time gatekeeping comments and more time checking the actual sensors—assuming you can see them through the haze."

I hope you’ll take your own advice, though, and stop posting about any other regions in Thailand, as it means less nonsense on those threads for us to ignore.

If you took the time to read your own posts, perhaps you’d understand why other are annoyed when people who don’t live here comment on the pollution. First you say the burning season is going on longer this year, then you contradict yourself by telling us the locals say it’s better this year and finally you admit to not even living here. Very useful.

On 4/18/2026 at 1:40 PM, KhunLA said:

Causes is a stretch. Yea, it's the weather, and different in different areas. Cycles simply repeating themselves, which may or may not affect any area.

Same same, not different. Only in MSM. If a drought, you got something to blame it on, if no drought ... so lucky this year 🙄

It's the weather, always the blame, and you can't control it (supposedly) 🙄

Or affect it in your everyday living. Again, only in MSM, where more taxes will solve everything.

No, ‘causes’ is not a stretch it’s an established fact that it leads to warmer weather in all areas. Do you have any qualifications that make your contrary opinion on El Niño relevant or are you just shooting your mouth off in that well-worn way that so many of your countrymen do?

1 hour ago, OutofLondon said:

No, ‘causes’ is not a stretch it’s an established fact that it leads to warmer weather in all areas. Do you have any qualifications that make your contrary opinion on El Niño relevant or are you just shooting your mouth off in that well-worn way that so many of your countrymen do?

Decades of life experiences in different parts of the world is enough for me to know, what they state is accurate. Location will dictate if it 'may or may not' affect any specific area. Guess you miss that part of forecasting weather.

I could explain it to you, but can't make you understand how weather works, since you're just another bigoted anti USA member mouthing off. You have a nice day.