How long did the Kaleum fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 March 2026 to 18 April 2026 (23 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 April 2026 to 13 April 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,496 hectares (45.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Kaleum (4,518 ha, 1.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.5 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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 · 2026-03-27 → 2026-04-18

Kaleum fire, 27 March 2026 Kaleum

Out · last detection 18 Apr 2026, 06:56 UTC

The fire started on 27 March 2026 in Kaleum, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,496 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 7th largest in Xekong since 2016 (of 22 with a page). Number 91 in Laos in 2026, of 287.

Burnt area: 4,496ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 23days; 27 Mar 2026 – 18 Apr 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 27 Mar; 2026
Heat detections: 93; in a single hotspot: 183 MW
Danger at start: 21; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 2.4GW; sum of detected power

Play back 18 Apr 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Mar18 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

272829311346789101112131415161718

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

The weather it burned in

38°high

37km/h · peak gust

26%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 14.2 mm on 19 Apr.

This area had burned before

68% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 757 ha in 2016, 1,570 ha in 2018, 2,033 ha in 2020, 1,520 ha in 2021, 1,321 ha in 2022, 1,089 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,054 ha that had burned before.

1,570 ha Kaleum fire, March 2018 5,666 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Kaleum where it started

4,518 ha reached on 27 Mar

1.3 %

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)
27 Mar	37.1 °C	30 %	23 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 21
28 Mar	34.2 °C	43 %	25 km/h	2.0 mm	Low 9
29 Mar	36.2 °C	27 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
30 Mar	36.6 °C	26 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
31 Mar	36.8 °C	26 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
1 Apr	37.0 °C	27 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
2 Apr	36.2 °C	33 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
3 Apr	36.4 °C	32 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
4 Apr	35.3 °C	35 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
5 Apr	35.8 °C	33 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
6 Apr	37.3 °C	30 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
7 Apr	36.8 °C	29 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
8 Apr	38.5 °C	26 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
9 Apr	37.1 °C	31 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
10 Apr	36.7 °C	33 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
11 Apr	36.7 °C	32 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
12 Apr	37.4 °C	31 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
13 Apr	37.2 °C	32 %	32 km/h	0.2 mm	High 33
14 Apr	37.3 °C	34 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
15 Apr	36.5 °C	33 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
16 Apr	35.3 °C	38 %	24 km/h	1.3 mm	Moderate 18
17 Apr	35.8 °C	41 %	21 km/h	4.1 mm	Low 6
18 Apr	32.9 °C	52 %	27 km/h	11.7 mm	Very low 2
19 Apr after	29.5 °C	66 %	25 km/h	14.2 mm	Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 20 Mar 2026

After · 25 Apr 2026

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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 11 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 102 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 68: 4.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak102 µg/m³

Days over the guideline28 days

PM10102 µg/m³

Optical depth2.19

WHO 15

25262728293031123456789101112131415161718192021

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 93Every 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 Kaleum fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 March 2026 to 18 April 2026 (23 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 April 2026 to 13 April 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,496 hectares (45.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Kaleum (4,518 ha, 1.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.5 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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 ↗

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

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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