Bualapha fire, March 2026 Bualapha, Vilabuly
The fire started on 31 March 2026 in Bualapha, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,684 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 29th largest in Khammouane since 2016 (of 54 with a page). Number 190 in Laos in 2026, of 308.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 2,684ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 17days
- 31 Mar 2026 – 16 Apr 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 31 Mar
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 79
- in a single hotspot: 62 MW
- Danger at start
- 27
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 33MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.7 mm on 17 Apr.
This area had burned before
71% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 804 ha in 2016, 442 ha in 2019, 566 ha in 2020, 788 ha in 2021, 447 ha in 2024, 641 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,903 ha that had burned before.
- 788 ha Bualapha fire, March 2021 4,981 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 566 ha Bualapha fire, March 2020 2,211 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 61 ha Bualapha fire, March 2024 2,704 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Bualapha where it started1,619 ha reached on 1 Apr0.5 %
-
1,078 ha reached on 8 Apr0.6 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31 Mar | 37.1 °C | 36 % | 42 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 27 |
| 1 Apr | 36.5 °C | 37 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 2 Apr | 37.0 °C | 35 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 3 Apr | 37.8 °C | 37 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 4 Apr | 35.8 °C | 42 % | 43 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 28 |
| 5 Apr | 36.6 °C | 41 % | 45 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 29 |
| 6 Apr | 38.9 °C | 31 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 7 Apr | 38.6 °C | 30 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 8 Apr | 40.5 °C | 26 % | 40 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 36 |
| 9 Apr | 39.9 °C | 28 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 10 Apr | 39.1 °C | 30 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 11 Apr | 39.7 °C | 27 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 12 Apr | 40.2 °C | 27 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 13 Apr | 39.6 °C | 27 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 14 Apr | 39.3 °C | 29 % | 32 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 36 |
| 15 Apr | 38.9 °C | 28 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 16 Apr | 37.9 °C | 34 % | 31 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 35 |
| 17 Apr after | 37.5 °C | 42 % | 30 km/h | 4.7 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 14 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 82 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 55: 3.7 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 · 79Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 11,672 haVilabuly9 March 2021 · 22 days · 13 km away
- 7,241 haVilabuly24 March 2026 · 25 days · 15 km away
- 8,618 haVilabuly1 March 2022 · 15 days · 16 km away
- 7,158 haVilabulyFebruary 2023 · 32 days · 17 km away
- 11,085 haXaybuathong25 February 2020 · 26 days · 24 km away
- 6,558 haVilabulyApril 2022 · 9 days · 24 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Bualapha fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 31 March 2026 to 16 April 2026 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 7 April 2026 to 15 April 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,684 hectares (26.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bualapha (1,619 ha, 0.5 %); Vilabuly (1,078 ha, 0.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 40.5 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, class Very 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
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 7 April 2026 to 15 April 2026. 79 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.