CityNews – 9th March 2020, the village head of a village in Mae Faek Mai sub district, Sansai district, had an accident while fighting forest fire.
On the evening of the 9th March the rescue service centre was alerted to a man who had been badly burnt while fighting a fire. On arrival, the rescue team saw a large number of villagers helping to tend to Nipon Jaratham, the head of the local village, who had been very badly burned. He was immediately removed from the scene and rushed to Sansai hospital before being transferred to Maharaj hospital.
According to villagers, there was a large fire in the area near the village earlier that day. Villagers were alarmed that the fire may spread to their community. Nipon therefore led a group of volunteers to enter the forest to fight the fire. While combatting the fire, it became much larger and spread to Nipon. Unfortunately he faced the brunt of the fire and 90% of his body was burned.
The governor of Chiang Mai later visited Nipon and donated 50,000 baht raised from various donors for his care.