Mad fire, March 2023 Mad
The fire started on 23 March 2023 in Mad, Laos, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,501 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 55th largest in Vientiane since 2016 (of 74 with a page). Number 146 in Laos in 2023, of 214.
- Burnt area
- 2,501ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 24days
- 23 Mar 2023 – 15 Apr 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 23 Mar
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 121
- in a single hotspot: 156 MW
- Energy released
- 1.8GW
- 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
85% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,541 ha in 2016, 716 ha in 2017, 893 ha in 2018, 122 ha in 2019, 1,311 ha in 2020, 202 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,119 ha that had burned before.
- 1,311 ha Mad fire, March 2020 10,255 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 716 ha Mad fire, April 2017 7,343 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 282 ha Mad fire, April 2018 3,470 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 202 ha Mad fire, April 2022 2,052 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 122 ha Mad fire, April 2019 5,066 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Mad where it started2,512 ha reached on 23 Mar1.6 %
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 · 121Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mad fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 March 2023 to 15 April 2023 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 29 March 2023 to 8 April 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,501 hectares (25.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Mad (2,512 ha, 1.6 %).
- 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.