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Long fire, 14 March 2020 Long

Out · last detection 9 Apr 2020, 05:59 UTC

The fire started on 14 March 2020 in Long, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 21,385 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the largest fire in Luang Namtha since 2016 (of 36 with a page). Number 2 in Laos in 2020, of 169.

Burnt area
21,385ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
27days
14 Mar 2020 – 9 Apr 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
14 Mar
2020
Heat detections
1,254
in a single hotspot: 142 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
8.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Apr 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Mar9 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

14171819202122232425262728293031123456789

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
48km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 21.8 mm on 13 Apr.

This area had burned before

14% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,548 ha in 2016, 1,142 ha in 2017, 1,225 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,981 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Long where it started
    21,483 ha reached on 14 Mar
    8.5 %

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)
21 Mar 31.5 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.6 mm High 33
22 Mar 33.0 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Mar 31.6 °C 23 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Mar 32.3 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Mar 33.5 °C 17 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Mar 33.6 °C 17 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
27 Mar 33.8 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Mar 34.0 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Mar 34.5 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
30 Mar 35.0 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Mar 35.4 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Apr 35.1 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
2 Apr 35.0 °C 17 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Apr 34.9 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Apr 34.7 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Apr 34.2 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 45
6 Apr 34.5 °C 21 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Apr 35.6 °C 15 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Apr 33.7 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Apr 33.4 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 40
10 Apr after 34.0 °C 24 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Apr after 34.6 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
12 Apr after 35.3 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.6 mm High 36
13 Apr after 22.5 °C 72 % 34 km/h 21.8 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Mar 2020
After · 16 Apr 2020

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 · 1,254Every 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 Long fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 March 2020 to 9 April 2020 (27 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 March 2020 to 9 April 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 21,385 hectares (213.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Long (21,483 ha, 8.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, class Very 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

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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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.