Hoon fire, 20 March 2026 Hoon
The fire started on 20 March 2026 in Hoon, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,863 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 131th largest in Oudomxay since 2016 (of 239 with a page). Number 179 in Laos in 2026, of 308.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Hoon · 2025Hoon · 2023Hoon · 2021Hoon · 2024
- Burnt area
- 2,863ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 19days
- 20 Mar 2026 – 7 Apr 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 20 Mar
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 95
- in a single hotspot: 51 MW
- Danger at start
- 12
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 72MW
- 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 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,306 ha in 2016, 1,361 ha in 2017, 413 ha in 2018, 489 ha in 2019, 1,301 ha in 2020, 1,949 ha in 2021, 367 ha in 2022, 2,234 ha in 2023, 1,535 ha in 2024, 2,349 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,878 ha that had burned before.
- 2,180 ha Hoon fire, March 2025 5,680 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,014 ha Hoon fire, February 2023 2,858 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,949 ha Hoon fire, February 2021 3,050 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,535 ha Hoon fire, March 2024 7,596 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,361 ha Hoon fire, March 2017 2,665 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 801 ha Hoon fire, March 2016 4,558 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 367 ha Hoon fire, March 2022 3,087 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 274 ha Hoon fire, March 2020 9,258 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
-
Hoon where it started2,876 ha1.4 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 2.0 hectares of built-up land and about 650 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 Mar | 32.1 °C | 40 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 21 Mar | 32.5 °C | 41 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 22 Mar | 31.1 °C | 50 % | 40 km/h | 1.1 mm | Low 9 |
| 23 Mar | 33.4 °C | 29 % | 34 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 24 Mar | 34.0 °C | 27 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 25 Mar | 33.6 °C | 31 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 26 Mar | 34.0 °C | 28 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 27 Mar | 34.3 °C | 29 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 28 Mar | 35.0 °C | 28 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 29 Mar | 33.3 °C | 34 % | 49 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 26 |
| 30 Mar | 33.9 °C | 32 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 31 Mar | 34.0 °C | 33 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 1 Apr | 33.6 °C | 38 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 2 Apr | 34.4 °C | 36 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 3 Apr | 35.1 °C | 33 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 4 Apr | 34.5 °C | 34 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 5 Apr | 34.3 °C | 38 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 6 Apr | 34.1 °C | 39 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 7 Apr | 34.5 °C | 39 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 8 Apr after | 35.0 °C | 33 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 9 Apr after | 35.0 °C | 31 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 10 Apr after | 34.4 °C | 28 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 11 Apr after | 34.4 °C | 31 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 12 Apr after | 35.3 °C | 21 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 13 Apr after | 35.9 °C | 29 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 14 Apr after | 35.4 °C | 32 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 15 Apr after | 35.9 °C | 32 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 16 Apr after | 36.7 °C | 22 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 17 Apr after | 35.2 °C | 33 % | 28 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.
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 5 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 153 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 109: 7.3 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 · 95Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 13,326 haHoon8 April 2018 · 7 days · 19 km away
- 12,233 haPha Oudom28 March 2016 · 22 days · 27 km away
- 14,815 haHoon22 March 2026 · 27 days · 33 km away
- 11,734 haBeng18 March 2023 · 26 days · 38 km away
- 11,424 haPha Oudom21 March 2019 · 13 days · 40 km away
- 10,533 haNgeun21 March 2023 · 16 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Hoon fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 20 March 2026 to 7 April 2026 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 26 March 2026 to 31 March 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,863 hectares (28.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Hoon (2,876 ha, 1.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.1 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, 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.
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 26 March 2026 to 31 March 2026. 95 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.
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.