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Hoon fire, 16 March 2023 Hoon, Beng

Out · last detection 6 Apr 2023, 18:56 UTC

The fire started on 16 March 2023 in Hoon, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,809 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 14th largest in Oudomxay since 2016 (of 239 with a page). Number 26 in Laos in 2023, of 239.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Hoon · 2018Beng · 2019Hoon · 2020Hoon · 2017

Burnt area
9,809ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
22days
16 Mar 2023 – 6 Apr 2023
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
16 Mar
2023
Heat detections
483
in a single hotspot: 265 MW
Danger at start
6
Low · FWI index
Average daily power
789MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Mar6 Apr
6 Apr 2023

How it evolved, day by day

16 Mar 2023 · 11 MW · 4 17 Mar 2023 · 155 MW · 7 18 Mar 2023 · 423 MW · 9 19 Mar 2023 · 53 MW · 8 20 Mar 2023 · 88 MW · 5 22 Mar 2023 · 649 MW · 39 23 Mar 2023 · 35 MW · 4 24 Mar 2023 · 3,607 MW · 96 25 Mar 2023 · 2,148 MW · 47 26 Mar 2023 · 6,089 MW · 139 27 Mar 2023 · 108 MW · 7 28 Mar 2023 · 795 MW · 29 29 Mar 2023 · 47 MW · 8 30 Mar 2023 · 34 MW · 8 31 Mar 2023 · 65 MW · 13 3 Apr 2023 · 67 MW · 10 4 Apr 2023 · 136 MW · 21 5 Apr 2023 · 307 MW · 21 6 Apr 2023 · 180 MW · 8
16 Mar 19 Mar 23 Mar 26 Mar 29 Mar 3 Apr 6 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

33°high
49km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

81% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,447 ha in 2016, 2,442 ha in 2017, 3,320 ha in 2018, 3,346 ha in 2019, 2,334 ha in 2020, 2,068 ha in 2021, 952 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,939 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 6.2% of the area of London (98 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

  1. Hoon where it started
    5,447 ha
    2.6 %
  2. Beng
    4,415 ha
    2.6 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area0.13 ha
Residents≈ 1,800

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.13 hectares of built-up land and about 1,800 residents (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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 25.5 °C 49 % 35 km/h 1.4 mm Low 6
17 Mar 29.5 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 16
18 Mar 30.5 °C 39 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 20
19 Mar 29.6 °C 46 % 35 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 20
20 Mar 30.8 °C 37 % 41 km/h 0.2 mm High 23
21 Mar 30.7 °C 35 % 45 km/h 0.2 mm High 24
22 Mar 31.8 °C 29 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
23 Mar 32.2 °C 24 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
24 Mar 32.1 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
25 Mar 31.8 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
26 Mar 31.5 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Mar 31.2 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
28 Mar 31.1 °C 35 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
29 Mar 30.8 °C 36 % 41 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
30 Mar 30.5 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
31 Mar 31.2 °C 33 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
1 Apr 32.6 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
2 Apr 32.6 °C 28 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Apr 31.8 °C 29 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
4 Apr 32.2 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
5 Apr 32.6 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Apr 33.0 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Apr after 32.4 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Apr after 30.9 °C 42 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
9 Apr after 32.2 °C 43 % 43 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
10 Apr after 34.3 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Apr after 34.9 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
12 Apr after 34.5 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Apr after 34.5 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Apr after 35.3 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Apr after 34.8 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
16 Apr after 33.8 °C 39 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Mar 2023
After · 13 Apr 2023

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 · 483Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

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 2023 to 6 April 2023 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 23 March 2023 to 30 March 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 9,809 hectares (98.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Hoon (5,447 ha, 2.6 %); Beng (4,415 ha, 2.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 49 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

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 23 March 2023 to 30 March 2023. 483 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 2025, 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.