Chiang Mai’s Provincial Administrative Organisation (PAO) handed over 10.99 million baht to the Chiang Mai Wildfire and Haze Prevention and Mitigation Foundation on 9th March, in a ceremony presided over by PAO president Phichai Lertpongadisorn. The funds were received by provincial governor Ratthapol Naradisorn, who also chairs the foundation.
The money — supplementing a separate budget from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment — will be distributed across 727 villages in wildfire surveillance zones spanning all 24 districts of the province. In practice, that means fuel for leaf blowers and vehicles, and food for the volunteer teams doing the actual sweating.
Phichai noted that the PAO is the only local administrative body in Thailand voluntarily committing its own budget to support government wildfire efforts, and that this marks the fifth consecutive year of the programme. Whether that’s a point of pride or an indictment of how the rest of the country handles things is left as an exercise for the reader.
Private sector partners also stepped up, donating 100 leaf blowers for community firebreak work, along with accident insurance policies worth over 500,000 baht for volunteer firefighters — a reminder that the people holding the leaf blowers are doing so without a government salary.
The timing is not incidental. As of 9th March, 32 active hotspots had been recorded across the province, with Omkoi District leading the count at 11. Firefighters and volunteers are currently engaged across the hills as temperatures climb and the season intensifies.
