Add fire, April 2024 Add
The fire started on 2 April 2024 in Add, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,100 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 35th largest in Houaphan since 2016 (of 132 with a page). Number 24 in Laos in 2024, of 109.
- Burnt area
- 4,100ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 2 Apr 2024 – 8 Apr 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 2 Apr
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 144
- in a single hotspot: 126 MW
- Danger at start
- 34
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 2.3GW
- sum of detected power
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 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 10 Apr.
This area had burned before
69% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 148 ha in 2016, 584 ha in 2017, 1,016 ha in 2018, 1,903 ha in 2019, 534 ha in 2020, 768 ha in 2021, 237 ha in 2022, 423 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,815 ha that had burned before.
- 1,200 ha Add fire, April 2019 3,742 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,016 ha Add fire, April 2018 2,306 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 768 ha Add fire, March 2021 2,188 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 703 ha Add fire, April 2019 3,165 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 584 ha Add fire, April 2017 3,202 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Add where it started4,120 ha reached on 2 Apr4.0 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Apr | 33.9 °C | 28 % | 59 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 3 Apr | 34.8 °C | 29 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 4 Apr | 34.4 °C | 30 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 5 Apr | 34.9 °C | 34 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 6 Apr | 34.3 °C | 39 % | 43 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 29 |
| 7 Apr | 35.4 °C | 34 % | 44 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 30 |
| 8 Apr | 31.5 °C | 64 % | 32 km/h | 2.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 9 Apr after | 27.6 °C | 70 % | 32 km/h | 0.2 mm | Low 8 |
| 10 Apr after | 29.8 °C | 54 % | 23 km/h | 1.3 mm | Low 8 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 6 April 2024 the air beside the fire reached 125 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 89: 5.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 144Every 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 Add fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 2 April 2024 to 8 April 2024 (7 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 April 2024 to 6 April 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,100 hectares (41.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Add (4,120 ha, 4.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 59 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 Laos (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.
Satellite cross-check
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
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.