How long did the Hoon fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 March 2019 to 10 April 2019 (26 days). The perimeter dates it from 20 March 2019 to 3 April 2019.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,914 hectares (69.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Pakbeng (6,455 ha, 5.1 %); Hoon (492 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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.

LA · Laos · 2019-03-16 → 2019-04-10

Hoon fire, 16 March 2019 Pakbeng, Hoon

Out · last detection 11 Apr 2019, 18:53 UTC

The fire started on 16 March 2019 in Hoon, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,914 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 35th largest in Oudomxay since 2016 (of 239 with a page). Number 10 in Laos in 2019, of 126.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Pakbeng · 2018 Hoon · 2017 Ngeun · 2023 Pha Oudom · 2016

Burnt area: 6,914ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 26days; 16 Mar 2019 – 10 Apr 2019
Municipalities hit: 2; districts
Started on: 16 Mar; 2019
Heat detections: 282; in a single hotspot: 469 MW
Danger at start: 25; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 250MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Mar10 Apr

Play back 11 Apr 2019

How it evolved, day by day

16 Mar 22 Mar 25 Mar 26 Mar 30 Mar 3 Apr 7 Apr

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

36°high

47km/h · peak gust

22%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

44% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 487 ha in 2016, 951 ha in 2017, 1,970 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,022 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 4.4% of the area of London (69 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Pakbeng

6,455 ha

5.1 %
Hoon where it started

492 ha

0.2 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020

Built-up area3.8 ha

Residents≈ 1,900

Inside the perimeter there were about 3.8 hectares of built-up land and about 1,900 residents (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
16 Mar	32.4 °C	41 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
17 Mar	33.3 °C	39 %	32 km/h	0.1 mm	High 25
18 Mar	32.7 °C	39 %	35 km/h	0.6 mm	High 22
19 Mar	30.7 °C	44 %	43 km/h	0.4 mm	High 23
20 Mar	33.7 °C	30 %	46 km/h	0.6 mm	High 29
21 Mar	33.7 °C	27 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
22 Mar	33.5 °C	27 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
23 Mar	34.7 °C	22 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
24 Mar	31.6 °C	44 %	47 km/h	0.3 mm	High 26
25 Mar	33.1 °C	48 %	36 km/h	0.1 mm	High 24
26 Mar	33.4 °C	46 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
27 Mar	33.1 °C	44 %	37 km/h	0.8 mm	Moderate 19
28 Mar	32.8 °C	34 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
29 Mar	33.5 °C	24 %	34 km/h	0.8 mm	High 29
30 Mar	33.6 °C	30 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
31 Mar	34.4 °C	34 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
1 Apr	34.5 °C	29 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
2 Apr	33.0 °C	39 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
3 Apr	33.1 °C	40 %	35 km/h	1.1 mm	Moderate 19
4 Apr	33.3 °C	38 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
5 Apr	33.1 °C	40 %	35 km/h	0.5 mm	High 24
6 Apr	33.0 °C	38 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
7 Apr	34.5 °C	38 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
8 Apr	35.4 °C	27 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
9 Apr	35.7 °C	29 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
10 Apr	35.8 °C	28 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
11 Apr after	36.0 °C	26 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
12 Apr after	36.1 °C	31 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
13 Apr after	36.8 °C	28 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
14 Apr after	36.9 °C	29 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
15 Apr after	37.3 °C	28 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
16 Apr after	36.8 °C	32 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
17 Apr after	36.7 °C	32 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
18 Apr after	37.2 °C	27 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
19 Apr after	38.1 °C	25 %	44 km/h	0.3 mm	Very high 40
20 Apr after	37.9 °C	26 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

↔

Before · 9 Mar 2019

After · 17 Apr 2019

Before After

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 · 282Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.

⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.

Date and time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Laos ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Hoon fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 March 2019 to 10 April 2019 (26 days). The perimeter dates it from 20 March 2019 to 3 April 2019.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,914 hectares (69.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Pakbeng (6,455 ha, 5.1 %); Hoon (492 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

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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 20 March 2019 to 3 April 2019. 282 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.
Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.

Where it burned