Atsaphone fire, March 2026 Atsaphone
The fire started on 14 March 2026 in Atsaphone, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,425 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 62th largest in Savannakhet since 2016 (of 96 with a page). Number 212 in Laos in 2026, of 287.
The power measured by the satellite is low (25.9 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 2,425ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 14days
- 14 Mar 2026 – 27 Mar 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 14 Mar
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 46
- in a single hotspot: 26 MW
- Energy released
- 367MW
- 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.
This area had burned before
89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 110 ha in 2020, 693 ha in 2022, 2,746 ha in 2023, 1,174 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,155 ha that had burned before.
- 1,000 ha Atsaphone fire, March 2023 2,149 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 693 ha Atsaphone fire, February 2022 3,124 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 192 ha Atsaphone fire, February 2023 2,360 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 26 ha Atsaphone fire, March 2024 3,314 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Atsaphone where it started2,439 ha reached on 14 Mar1.6 %
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.
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 27 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 65 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 45: 3.0 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 · 46Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 4,623 haXaybuathong28 February 2023 · 27 days · 21 km away
- 4,380 haXaybuathong9 March 2020 · 9 days · 31 km away
- 5,118 haXaybuathongFebruary 2019 · 16 days · 37 km away
- 4,846 haXaybuathong26 February 2022 · 21 days · 37 km away
- 5,192 haXaybuathong27 February 2023 · 23 days · 38 km away
- 3,936 haXaybuathong9 March 2021 · 12 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Atsaphone fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 March 2026 to 27 March 2026 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 March 2026 to 20 March 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,425 hectares (24.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Atsaphone (2,439 ha, 1.6 %).
- 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.