Hinherb fire, March 2023 Hinherb, Feuang, Sangthong
The fire started on 15 March 2023 in Hinherb, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,393 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 4th largest in Vientiane since 2016 (of 87 with a page). Number 12 in Laos in 2023, of 239.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 16,393ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 23days
- 15 Mar 2023 – 6 Apr 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- districts
- Started on
- 15 Mar
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 961
- in a single hotspot: 295 MW
- Danger at start
- 31
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 790MW
- 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 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 8 Apr.
This area had burned before
47% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,865 ha in 2016, 1,499 ha in 2017, 2,158 ha in 2018, 1,408 ha in 2019, 2,189 ha in 2020, 2,932 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,637 ha that had burned before.
- 2,158 ha Hinherb fire, March 2018 2,714 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,983 ha Hinherb fire, April 2016 2,421 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,499 ha Hinherb fire, April 2017 2,554 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 693 ha Hinherb fire, March 2020 7,145 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5 ha Hinherb fire, April 2016 2,990 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
-
Hinherb where it started10,047 ha8.4 %
-
6,083 ha7.0 %
-
338 ha0.5 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 Mar | 37.5 °C | 28 % | 34 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 31 |
| 22 Mar | 38.4 °C | 21 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 23 Mar | 38.2 °C | 22 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 24 Mar | 38.0 °C | 23 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 25 Mar | 38.8 °C | 20 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 26 Mar | 37.5 °C | 23 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 27 Mar | 35.3 °C | 37 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 28 Mar | 33.7 °C | 43 % | 36 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 30 |
| 29 Mar | 32.0 °C | 53 % | 32 km/h | 1.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 30 Mar | 33.6 °C | 45 % | 31 km/h | 1.9 mm | Low 10 |
| 31 Mar | 35.2 °C | 36 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 1 Apr | 36.3 °C | 33 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 2 Apr | 37.6 °C | 23 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 3 Apr | 37.2 °C | 24 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 4 Apr | 37.8 °C | 24 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 5 Apr | 37.8 °C | 22 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 6 Apr | 37.1 °C | 28 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 7 Apr after | 34.8 °C | 40 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 8 Apr after | 33.9 °C | 48 % | 35 km/h | 1.1 mm | Moderate 19 |
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.
Detections table · 961Every 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 Hinherb fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 15 March 2023 to 6 April 2023 (23 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 March 2023 to 30 March 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 16,393 hectares (163.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Hinherb (10,047 ha, 8.4 %); Feuang (6,083 ha, 7.0 %); Sangthong (338 ha, 0.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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
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 21 March 2023 to 30 March 2023. 961 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.