Kham fire, 3 April 2023 Kham
The fire started on 3 April 2023 in Kham, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,065 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 104th largest in Xiangkhouang since 2016 (of 107 with a page). Number 203 in Laos in 2023, of 214.
- Burnt area
- 2,065ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 3 Apr 2023 – 6 Apr 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 3 Apr
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 59
- in a single hotspot: 116 MW
- Energy released
- 1.4GW
- sum of detected power
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.
This area had burned before
79% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 621 ha in 2016, 510 ha in 2017, 618 ha in 2019, 977 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,627 ha that had burned before.
- 853 ha Kham fire, March 2020 6,740 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 618 ha Kham fire, April 2019 2,061 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 390 ha Kham fire, March 2016 4,150 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Kham where it started2,076 ha reached on 3 Apr1.0 %
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.
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 · 59Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 13,842 haHuameuang1 April 2023 · 20 days · 30 km away
- 13,172 haHuameuang9 April 2018 · 6 days · 30 km away
- 12,255 haHuameuang29 March 2026 · 20 days · 33 km away
- 26,992 haHuameuang3 April 2023 · 20 days · 35 km away
- 9,972 haHuameuang9 April 2018 · 6 days · 36 km away
- 13,571 haKham15 March 2026 · 29 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kham fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 April 2023 and 6 April 2023: 4 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,065 hectares (20.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Kham (2,076 ha, 1.0 %).
- 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
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.